Any hope for non-native English speakers to write good prose in English?
Hello!
I'm not a native English speaker but I like writing in English.
My biggest issue is that I'm new to writing AND reading in English and I keep wondering if there's any hope left lol. I've used English since I was a child, and I believe that my granmar skills are solid, but I grew up reading books in my native language. Not in English. Exposure to English came through school, music, movies and Wikipedia. I can probably thank Wikipedia for so much, acrually.
Last year, I started reading novels in English, and this year I've read 14 medium-sized books in English so far and only 5 in my native language. Please note that I'm an avid reader who's read hundreds of books so far, but almost all of them were in my native language, and well.. It's useful for structure, characters, plot, but NOT for prose, dialogue, etc...
Fortunately, I don't struggle with reading comprehension and I can understand even unknown words from context. I do underline all unknown words, idioms, collocations though and come back to them later. I'm trying hard to build my vocabulary, which I think is very important for a writer, but it's haaard.
I can't say I'm completely unhappy with my writing, but I'm not happy with it either. There's just so much that doesn't come to me naturally and I end up with lifeless, technical sentences. It's ten times better than last year, but it's still too simple....
Anyways, do you think there's any hope? Anyone who started reading in English in their late 20s and still managed to write good prose in English after years and years of practice?
I am certainly not going to give up, just interested in some different perspectives!
Thank you.