It’s a tough life, being a professional writer on the Internet. Everything you post reflects, well or badly, on your professional qualifications. You might just be chatting with your friends, but if it’s under your name, potential clients could judge your skills by it. If you regularly make a lot of mistakes, you could lose work as a result.

It can feel like a lot of pressure, even if your writing isn’t that bad. One way out is to split your life and consistently use a pseudonym either for your personal posts or your professional work. But a better answer is to work on making good writing a full-time habit. It makes your work easier, and it doesn’t hurt your credibility with your friends if you write grammatically. They might want to recommend you as a writer.

Suit the style to the situation

“Grammatically” doesn’t mean “formally.” The point isn’t that you need to write your social posts in full sentences and avoid Internet slang. I’m talking about avoiding outright blunders. If you write “then” when you mean “than” or “it’s” instead of “its,” that loses (not looses) you points in any kind of discussion.

Different kinds of writing require different styles. Some of them have their own rules, even if no textbook says so. If you’re trying to sound like Gollum, you can say “I wants it,” or if you’re trying to sound excited, “I wannit!!” Conversational posts give you more leeway for clichés and silliness. The point is to use them intentionally and when they work.

Mark Twain was the master of suiting his writing style to the situation. In his introduction to Huckleberry Finn, he enumerated the dialects he used and explained: “The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.”

Developing better writing habits

Am I suggesting you need to run every comment you write through a grammar checker? No, I’m not letting you off that easily. You need to make correct grammar and spelling — where “correct” is contextual — a habit. You need to know the rules in order to know when to break them. You may have gone to a school that didn’t correct your grammar because they didn’t want to hurt your feelings. If so, I’m sorry for you. Your feelings don’t help you to earn a living. You can still catch up, though it’s harder once you’re out of school.

One of the best and most enjoyable ways to improve your writing is to read lots of top-quality material. Pay attention to the author’s technique. Make sure you understand what each word means. Notice how good writers break the rules when they need to.

Not all mistakes are the result of ignorance. Sometimes my fingers just take over and type words which I didn’t intend. (Just now, they typed “intent,” and I had to backspace and fix it.) That’s why I always take a second look at what I’ve written before hitting the “submit” button, even in conversation. It has the bonus effect of giving me a chance to reconsider if I’ve just written something which is grammatical but really stupid.

No one said being a writer is easy. We all have to work on improving our technique, and every time we put our fingers on a keyboard we have a chance to exercise our skills well or badly. The more we improve, the better we’ll do at our careers. What’s more, we’ll communicate better.