Nita: I understand what you mean by wanting a “flow”, but I think you already have it. Your English, Nita, is much better than most Canadians are able to write. If I was reading you for the first time it wouldn’t take long to see a different use of the language, but it comes down to a dialect… slight differences in the use of specific terms or turns of phrase that are just a little different. To be honest I find them endearing when I (rarely) come across them. Differences are good.

You have a very professional style to your writing, which — no doubt — comes from your education and work experience. For me the metaphors and similes came with reading… what made me a better poet, for example, was reading more and more varied poetry. Not that I’m a decent poet, but I think what you’re looking for is taking the different styles of writing — poetic, analytical, journalistic — and overlapping them. To me writing has always been aboot wordplay, incorporating lyrics from a song or a line from a pulp novel into a story or essay to create something new… I think it has to do with finding a comfort level and being willing to experiment just outside it, but if you’re self-conscious aboot your writing — as I believe you might be — it becomes difficult to experiment with the metaphors. Have you thought aboot having a creative writing section to your site? Or maybe a separate site? It might be time to at least start to incorporate some different styles into your writing… myabe someplace where you won’t be afraid to make mistakes.

“We are the new Indians, who are neither experts in our own mother tongue, nor in the foreign language!”

I know what you mean. Here in Canada the French-speaking province of Quebec has been trying desperately to hold onto their language. For the most part they’ve succeeded, but now they have an entire generation who can’t work outside of the province. There also used to be dozens of Native languages which were all but stamped out by the British and then Canadians. Even “Canadian English” has mostly disappeared. The differences between our English and British or American English are fairly subtle, but they were always there. but now even our large daily newspapers spell honour “honor”. Which really, really pisses me off. We do seem to be heading, however, towards a world where English is the primary language with regional dialects. It’ll be interesting to see how English can absorb or change the Chinese languages.