writing

I've noticed when reading someones stories i find the mistakes they are making are similar to those that i make, though i hadn't realized it until looking at their writing. has that happened to you guys? I've also noticed that I tend to repeat some mistakes that I've been making for years. I wonder if that's because I was never corrected on them in middle school, where we were supposed to learn the basics. I'm sure you've noticed I tend to write run-on sentences, ones that sometimes are as large as a paragraph. I really need to work on that... another of the things i tend to mess up is punctuation. i never know whether it's a semi colon or a colon that is used, though most of the time i just use the semi colon :P and of course, who can forget spelling, grammar and sentence structure? the worst feeling is spelling a word right only to think you've spelled it wrong. why must the English language be so confusing?