Shakespeare and Never Passing on a Compliment

I got a compliment on my writing style yesterday, "You have a way with words." I'm still glowing. As I do with compliments, I analyse it, turn it around, savour it.

There are a few things that I do that make my words better. There are principles in the book "On Writing Well" by Zinsser, that still run through my head in everything I write. First of all is to write what I really mean. I always take one more look through my writing to see if anything can be cut. The result can be lean and hard-hitting. When I first started doing this, I even shocked myself. Did I really mean that? If I did, I sent it. Sometimes we couch in extra words in the hopes of softening the blow. But even cutting words are cleaner if they are sharp. No-one wants to be cut with a dull butter knife.

I can't help thinking also of Gladwell's description of talent acquisition. All it takes is 10,000 hours. I don't know how many hours I have racked up, but I do use my business writing skills every day.

Another great habit, even in business writing, is to never pass on a compliment. If someone has impressed me, I say so. And I tell them why. Look how a few nice words gave me a glow for a day. So is it for others who I pass on a compliment. And it's free.

As for Shakespeare, I was watching an episode of "Inside the Actors Studio" that got me thinking what it would be like if I had taken up acting. This is a good sign. If I am giving time to let my mind wander, that all-consuming project at work is beginning to lose its' hold.

Anyways, as we will do at mid-life, I wondered if it is too late to pursue a new activity. My body shape also is not exactly a casting ideal. Unless I were to be an extra on a fat farm or something.

But then I got to thinking about a role I've always relished; the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. I've always imagined her to be warm, round and jolly. She has the crudity of the common people, reminding me of Art's wonderful mother. She used to grab her breasts and roar how wonderful it is to be here in Canada. Look how she had grown! Anyways, I wonder if I might be able to take on a persona so completely, to be that person so completely that the audience would be carried with me through the story.

Let's see if I will add this to my lifetime achievement (or bucket) list, along with driving a race car and playing the piano.

Photo borrowed from Paul Dry Books.

Hairy ponderings

There's talk lately about natural hybridization between coyote and wolf, the coywolf. It got me to thinking, have men interbred with bears...a hubear, perhaps? I pondered this as I watched hubby scratch his broad hairy back on the edge of a door. This he does several times a day.


Which led me to ponder how married couples, over time, build up an embarrassing list of little habits and favors we would not dare mention in public. It takes a long, long while for the trust to build where I can openly fart while watching television, or for him to brazenly ask me to "itch back" and then wander away with glazed look of goofy contentment.


There's a wonderful confort in just being who we are, failings and idiosyncracies included, and knowing there will be understanding. Or at least tolerance. And privacy.


Except, of course, if your wife is a writer.

What did you dream of becoming as a child?

As a middle class kid growing up in suburbia, I dreamed of becoming an architecht, building struts of air and pockets of intimacy out of steel, wood, glass, and concrete. I also dreamed of becoming a writer, spinning another kind of structure out of magical words. Words are magic. They can inflame the imagination with fear or hope; they build us whole new worlds in our minds. I never became an architecht. But I do love to write.

In a way, that joy of building castles in the air is still with me. I'm a Manager in a busy government office with a large complement of staff and a big budget. My day is filled with meetings, decisions, approvals, and people, people, people. I am an acknowledged expert in my field and people pay attention to what I have to say. When I listen to a new plan or policy, I build a structure in my mind on what it will look like. Are there flaws or obstacles that will hinder us? How can we fix it?

The most fascinating structures of all for me, these days, is complex group interactions. How do we coax a group of people in to a new way of doing things? Can we help them overcome their own barriers? How do we get the best out of our people?

When I started out, I started at the bottom as a records clerk. This job found me when I was very low, and I worked my way up. How did I end up at the bottom? I became pregnant as a teen. The father, who I stayed with for three long years, was abusive. He rarely worked. We lived in a dirty hovel. When I left him, I was a shattered human being. But I was also a young mother of two small children. I did not have the luxury to give up. I had two futures in my hands. So I went to work. And learned and grew along the way with my children.

My children grounded me. No longer a passive dreamer, I went out and built a future for us. I gained some callouses and some smarts along the way. I was no longer a flat and plastic suburbia child. I had depth of character and new insights on how people are; both the dark and the bright. I chose to shine. So, ironically, my checquered past gave me the decent foundation to become a decent writer.

I've been published - once - a cute little anecdote about my son for a magazine. But most of the time my work has been turned down by publishers.

I've learned that rejection is part and parcel of the writer's trade. I've also learned that writing is a higly solitary activity that comes with rare praise. But the creating, if I remember that. The joy of building my castles in the air, that is mine to enjoy and share.