You're obvious taking absolutely the right approach, April, and I applaud you for doing so. I am an author myself (nothing "creative", I'm afraid - I write physics textbooks
) and for me, the very basic "prerequisite" for writing is the purely "technical" skill of writing correctly-spelled, grammatically-correct English. If I see writing which doesn't meet those criteria then I'm afraid that for me personally its literary merit is irrevelent - I find it "painful" to read and won't do so.