Friday, December 2, 2011

Making the Time to Be Creative


Oh, my poor neglected blog. Did I really go through all of November without a single post? Le sigh.

Which brings me to today's topic: Finding the time to write.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The older I get, the busier I get, it seems.

Actually, it's not even about being busier. It's about having more things in my life that use up all of my brain power. There's my full-time job. Then there's family and friends, with the face time and correspondence that those require. There's my husband, who I don't spend nearly as much time with as I'd like to. Then there's my two-year-old -- enough said. Then there's paying a whole family's bills and keeping on top of the zillion and one of life's logistical considerations.

After all that, most nights I'm too drained to do anything but read Facebook posts, play inane computer games, or scramble to get everything ready for the next work day followed by collapsing into bed.

The Role of Self-Discipline

At one point in my life, I was a single and carefree person in my mid-20s. I worked full-time, but other than that, my energy was my own, for the most part. And yet I still wasn't doing as much creative writing as I would have liked.

I theorized that maybe it was my job (editorial manager and wearer of 10 different hats at a small company) draining my creative energy. At one point, while between jobs, I accepted a position as an executive assistant. I thought maybe doing something fairly un-creative for a living would free up my creative energy so that I'd be more inspired to write during my time off.

The new job didn't make any difference. I would still come home in the evenings and do what I had been doing: going out with friends, or playing games, or calling people on the phone, or just reading books.

That's when I realized what the real issue was. I wasn't making the time for my creative endeavors. I wasn't being disciplined about it at all. I was just waiting around for inspiration to strike. In retrospect, I suppose I was hoping two things: (1) that inspiration would strike, and (2) that the strike would coincide with a period of time that my mind was not otherwise occupied with something else, so I'd have nothing stopping me from running to the computer and typing it all out.

It took me a long time to realize that kind of coincidence almost never happens. If I want to write, I will have to be disciplined and make myself sit down and write, even if I'm not in the mood.

MAKE the Time... Because It Doesn't Make Itself

The more I read about successful people, the more I realize what most of them have in common. Not good looks, or lots of money, or sheer dumb luck, but the fact that they worked their asses off toward a goal. Whatever it was they wanted, they were deliberate about doing whatever it took to get it.

Persistence is highly underrated. It sounds so dull: just keep chugging along. But I think it's actually the key to everything.

Maybe it's my vocabulary holding me back here. Creativity and discipline sound like such polar opposites, don't they? One term brings to mind a freebird bohemian who lives with other artists and devotes herself to her craft any time of the day or night. The other term calls up soldiers, dressed in identical uniforms, obeying commands given by someone else, eating and sleeping and breathing on a strict schedule. They almost sound mutually exclusive.

Yet, if your mental energy is as occupied as mine is, but you have a strong desire to do creative work, discipline is vital, if only to produce the basic tool required for creative work: free time. And that's what I have been lacking. I haven't made the time.

I got together with a friend for lunch a couple of weeks ago. Like me, she loves to write. But her life is filled to the brim with a more-than-full-time job, family, and an unemployed live-in boyfriend who demands a lot of her energy. While we were chatting, we realized that we have the same problem. When free time lands in our laps, it's such a relief that we can't resist using that time to unplug and just relax. But if we are going to write more, we have to set aside some time. And that's a completely mental exercise. It's not going to happen on its own.

We decided the two of us should get together once a week and sit at a bookstore (or coffee house, or whatever - the location doesn't matter) and do nothing but write. Having a date with the other person might keep us accountable so that we don't slack off and fill up that time with Angry Birds instead. We have yet to schedule our first such meeting. I hope we do. No, wait -- hoping it will happen is what got me here in the first place. I need to just do it. Pick a time and place and do it, with no excuses.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

People Who Can't Be Bothered to Communicate Clearly Online

My pet peeve of the day: People who can't be bothered to communicate clearly online.

If you've spent significant time in any particular online community, you've noticed that people typically fall into two categories:
  1. People whose writing is easy to understand because, for the most part, it's error-free and written clearly
  2. People whose writing is difficult to understand because it's riddled with spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation, run-on sentences, etc.
I should probably add a third category: "People whose writing would be clear except that it's full of hilarious typos produced by their iPad/iPhone autocorrect feature."

Here's What I Mean

These are not the most egregious examples, but they give you an idea:










Why Bother

My basic question is this. If you're participating in an online community, chances are it's because you want people to read what you wrote.

If you care about people reading what you write, why wouldn't you care about taking basic steps to make sure your message actually gets through? Seems contradictory to me.

Don't Waste My Time

Seriously, I'm busy enough. I don't have time to spend extra minutes, or even seconds, trying to decipher what you were trying to say. Heck, I have days where even milliseconds seem too long to waste on somebody who is making ME do all the work to read THEIR message.

If my brain finds that it's getting stuck in a quagmire of misspellings and unclear meaning, my busy brain tends to skip right over the text and find something else that's easier to read.

Don't get me wrong. One or two typos doesn't make a difference. Everyone makes one or two typos. I bet there are at least that many typos in this blog post. I'm talking about the posts that have egregious and/or frequent offenses to clear communication.

For instance, I was reading one day where a woman was complaining about her husband. She wrote, "He never abused me fisically, but..."

My brain read that as abused me fiscally. In other words, I thought she was saying that this guy had never stolen from her, or gambled away her life savings, or spent her money frivolously. I had read down another three or four sentences before I realized that she'd meant to say physically. I then had to go back and reread the entire paragraph now that I knew what she meant. And that, folks, is what I simply don't have time for in my life.

The Worst Part

The worst part is that, because I am so busy, I find myself falling into the trap of not editing myself when I've made a minor typo. I'm so tempted to just move on because I know it's minor, and let my readers decipher it because I know it won't take them very long.

But that is how it begins, my friends. And then it's a long downward spiral into being That Person. The one whose stuff nobody bothers to read because you'd have to chop through the errors with a machete like Indiana Jones hacking his way through the jungle.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

"Contract Creator" for Freelancers

Check out this new tool from the Freelancers Union. It's a nifty tool that will automatically generate a contract for you to use with new clients. Click the image to view it at higher resolution:


To use the tool, you have to join the Freelancers Union (which is free). Once you are logged in, you can find the contract creator tool here.

Creating contracts is something that I knew absolutely nothing about when I started freelancing. If I'd had to come up with a contract, I would have probably started with Google and found something very generic, then modified it based on my very limited (okay, nonexistent) legal knowledge.

The Freelancers Union created this tool in conjunction with Furnari Scher, a law practice that works with freelancers, consultants, and independent contractors.

The more I learn about the Freelancers Union, the better my opinion gets. They exist to support freelancers of all types. Their web site is well done (though, if you're listening, guys, your search functionality could use some work - a search for "contract creator" does not find the tool even if you're logged in). Their e-mail communications are good. Overall they seem very organized, professional, and worth being a part of.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Happy Birthday, Blog

Good morning!

I couldn't let September end without acknowledging that this week is the 1-year anniversary of when I started this blog.

It's been a great year. Having a blog to motivate me to write more often has been excellent for this person, who, at the age of 35, still procrastinates. (I guess procrastinators, like proofreaders, are born, not made.)

One limitation of a blog about editing and proofreading is that, eventually, you will cover all the grammar topics that it's possible to cover. And there's only so much you can say about commas, even if you're a grammar nerd like I am.

So I imagine I'll start to cover topics more often that aren't strictly related to editing, like last week's blog about common sense. Having this blog about editing for the past year has made me realize how many other things I want to write about. I even contemplated starting up a second blog to cover those things. Then I came back down to earth and realized that will never happen. It's enough of a challenge (a welcome challenge, but still a challenge) to write once a week or so when you work full-time and have a toddler. I couldn't keep two blogs current (unless I was being paid to blog... how DO you get a job like that?).

And now, I've been staring at that cake picture for so long that I'm starving, so it's time for breakfast. Happy Friday, everybody!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Why Common Sense is Dead











  • common sense noun : sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts

Years ago, I laughed when I first heard the quote, "Common sense is not so common" (attributed to the writer Voltaire, among others; no one's quite sure who said it).

Nowadays, I find that statement to be more true every day. Things that used to be commonly accepted are not anymore. Everything from "You shouldn't spend more than you earn" to "You can't trust someone who lies to you" (just look at politicians for the most high-profile violations of those two).

I would chalk it up to my own aging. What's considered "common sense" surely must shift over the years. But I see another source of the fragmenting of common sense.

The Too-Much-Information Age

The Information Age is a great thing. Right? We have unprecedented access to knowledge and perspectives from around the entire world. It's an embarrassment of riches.

But with those riches comes responsibility. Now that more information circulates out there, we're expected to know more of it.

At some point, our brains just fill up, like a maxed-out hard drive. Believe me, I have the greatest respect for the mighty human brain and its distributed storage of knowledge in neural networks. But there are only so many neurons and synapses to go around. When it fills up, if something new needs to go in, something old must come out.

The New Common Sense

Off the top of my head, here are a few things we are expected to remember nowadays that our ancestors 100 years ago were not:
  • Traffic rules and regulations
  • Health insurance rules and regulations
  • Thousands of state and federal laws that have been enacted in that time (because ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it)
  • Hundreds of computer usernames, passwords, and website URLs
  • How to use and maintain a personal computer
  • How to use anywhere from a handful to hundreds of different software applications and web applications, plus hundreds of functions within each one, plus all the new features introduced with each new "upgrade"
  • How to use e-mail, and what to do with the thousands (even millions) of e-mails that pile up over your lifetime
  • How to operate, troubleshoot, and maintain the several dozen electric appliances that you probably have in your household
  • Modern medicine: What it can fix, what it can't, and which symptoms should cause you to take what action
  • Scientific research. If you're going to use this research wisely, you have to keep track of which scientific conclusions are well established (in other words, worth believing because they are backed up by years of repeated, well-designed studies) and which ones have been demonstrated in only one or two studies (in other words, conclusions that you're better off ignoring until future research substantiates them).
  • Hundreds to thousands of popular culture references. This may seem optional, especially compared to the above. But there is a degree to which people take you less seriously if they say something like, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" and you stare at them cluelessly instead of smiling.
And those are just the things that nearly everyone needs to know. Depending on your personal interests, you likely seek out more information voluntarily and fill up your brain even more. For example, if you pride yourself on keeping up with current events around the world, then you'll be maxing out those neurons with the infinitesimal details of happenings in various countries.

Makes life in the 1800s seem appealingly simple, doesn't it? No wonder people chuck it all and move out to the country to live on communes. I've had that urge myself.

Fragmenting of Common Sense

With all the information thrown at us, it's no wonder people feel overwhelmed. And when people feel overwhelmed, they tend to fall back on things that they believe.

I'm not talking about belief that is independent of facts. What I mean is that I think each of us forms a set of beliefs -- our own personal version of "common sense" -- based on our own personal distillation of the available facts. Perhaps this was always true, and that's where quotes like "Common sense is not so common" -- which dates from the mid-1700s -- came from.

With a much larger number of facts available, I'm not surprised that a much larger variety of interpretations of "common sense" have emerged.

I'm also interested in how it becomes "common sense" to relieve yourself of information overload. (Because stressing out is bad for your health -- isn't that common sense??)

For example, everyone knows it would be ideal, from a security perspective, to have a different password for every computer application that you use. Yet I'd bet the vast majority of us use the same password for everything. To someone who works in IT security, it might be common sense to have different passwords for everything. But to the average Joe, it is common sense to avoid remembering 100 passwords when you have enough stuff to keep track of in your life. Likewise, it's common sense that if you write down your password on a post-it note and stick it to your monitor, then anyone who happens by can access your computer. But to someone else, it's common sense to keep the password on that sticky note because if they don't, they'll forget what it is.

No More Common Knowledge?

Nobody has access to exactly the same facts as anyone else anymore (if only because the 24-hour day limits the amount of information each of us can absorb). So "common knowledge" and common experiences, and therefore common sense, may become a thing of the past.

Maybe soon there will be no more common anything. I hope that's not the case because no one likes to feel isolated. We all enjoy being a part of a community where we have things in common.

I think we have all felt that isolation already. How many times do you read about someone online, or see them on TV, and think to yourself, "This person is so different from me rationally/spiritually that they seem like an alien to me. I have no idea how anyone could possibly think or act that way." And it's hard to believe that they live just across town from you and shop at the same stores as you and vote in the same elections as you. Yet they do, and they're probably thinking the same thing about you.

Imagine trying to govern a nation of such individuals, with fewer and fewer "common causes" to get behind. I do not envy our leaders.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The Curse of Creativity

First of all, I know I haven't been on in nearly a month. I know that equates to being in a coma or dying, as far as bloggers go. Let's just say there were extenuating circumstances. The important thing is, I'm back!

And now: THE CURSE!

The curse of creativity is when you are so taken over by an idea that you drop everything else in your life to pursue it.

I'm not just talking about ignoring calls from your friends and family for a few weeks or neglecting your children. I'm talking about pushing aside basic human needs in your hot-headed urge to get the idea down on paper, or canvas, or on your guitar, or in Photoshop, or on the computer.

Like sleep. "Sleep be damned!" says your mind when it's on fire with a creative idea. Food is another one. I personally adore food so much that I would eat chocolate chips out of the freezer for an entire day rather than starve myself completely, even for the world's best idea. But I have heard of folks who survived for days on caffeine alone.

My husband and I have talked about this curse before. He is a musician and songwriter who has stayed up many a night composing. For me, it's writing.

There's something desperate about the drive to get your idea out of your head and into a more permanent form. The drive is almost... let's not get too graphic here... procreative. It's a little disturbing. But it's the truth. It's urgent. It's a feeling of "now or never." If something thwarts your urge, you'll be frustrated. You'll get over it eventually, maybe even quickly, but you'll feel like you've been denied one of the very biological needs you shoved aside to pursue your idea in the first place. It can be that powerful.

For me, I was wide awake at 5:30 AM today with an idea for a screenplay. I gave up on sleep, got up and sat down at the computer. Three pages of notes later, I've written down all of the main characters, their histories, the basic plot more or less from start to finish, and even some dialogue. I'll let you know if it turns into anything.

I'd love to hear your stories of what happens to you when the creativity bug bites you.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

LinkedIn Poll: "Which writing mistake drives you crazy?"

Good morning!

Thought I'd share this little poll with you all. LinkedIn asked: "Which writing mistake drives you crazy?"

I find the results somewhat surprising. The number one most annoying mistake, as rated by people who took the poll, was homophone misuse (e.g. writing except when you mean accept). This one annoys me too, but I thought "Punctuation abuse" would score much higher than it did.

Also encouraging was the mistake voted second most annoying: "Cliches, passive voice, trite writing." Granted, people who chose to take this poll are more likely than the general population to care about quality writing. But it's encouraging to me because it says to me that a significant number of folks still care about good writing. Sometimes, reading things on the internet, it's easy to think that good writing isn't valued much.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

"Words" We Hate

Warning: The editor is ornery today!

Does it bug you when you hear a word that's not really a word -- and may even be totally incorrect -- yet people who say it can't seem to grasp that they're wrong?

Take this example: incent. I hear this all the time, especially in business. As in, "What can we do to incent our staff to work harder?"

It makes me cringe every time. The correct word is incentivize. Saying incent makes it look like (1) you're ignorant of the correct word, (2) you're dying to use the latest business buzzword, and/or (3) you're trying to popularize your own trendy little buzzword even though it's incorrect... or your own shortened version of a buzzword... I mean, really? Is incentivize really that long and cumbersome to pronounce? Do we need nicknames for buzzwords? Wouldn't that be, like, one of the most ridiculous things ever? (Maybe I need to write a separate blog about buzzwords.)

Changing Language

Don't get me wrong. I know word usage changes all the time. I know that over time, nouns get used as verbs or adjectives, and vice versa. Lord knows text wasn't used as a verb until very recently in history.

And yet text as a verb doesn't bother me. Incent does. Maybe because nouns becoming verbs is so common that it seems like a natural, creative progression of the English language to me. whereas incent is just plain wrong.

Another one that makes me cringe is heighth. You know, when people mean to say height, but they slap an extra -th sound onto the end. Maybe this is merely a regional variation, or maybe people who say this are trying to be all egalitarian, not wanting height to be deprived of the same ending sound possessed by its cousins, length and width. I don't know. But for the record, it's wrong.

What's your (non-)word pet peeve?

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Test Your Vocab

Maybe you've seen this on Facebook by now, but if not, check it out:

http://testyourvocab.com/

The instructions read: "Check the box for each word you know at least one definition for. Don't check boxes for words you know you've seen before, but whose meaning you aren't exactly sure of."

My score was 24,900. What was yours?

Most of my friends' and families' scores were higher than mine. I used to think I had a big vocabulary. But that was back in high school, when I was reading world literature and classics on a daily basis for English class.

Sometimes I think my high school days were the "smartest" I've ever been, at least in terms of book learning. I read a lot now, but the books I read don't necessarily use words like legerdemain and sparge. I wish I had time to be reading Poe and Dickens on a regular basis. *sigh* Maybe when I retire.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Mxied-Up Wrods


For your amusement:
  • Deos it relaly maettr aubot the splleing or grmaamr, as lnog as you get the msesege?
According to an Internet meme that's been circulating for many years, something about the human brain allows us to read words - easily, too - as long as the first letter and the last letter are in the right place.
  • I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.
Fact or Fiction?

Is this really true? Can you scramble up the middle letters of ANY word and still be able to read it without a problem?

It turns out that the "research at Cambridge University," cited in the jumbled paragraph above, does not exist. At least, it did not exist when that paragraph started circulating.

However, Cambridge researcher Matt Davis, after seeing that paragraph on the internet, delved into this issue in great detail. Click here to read his excellent page on the topic.

The Verdict

On his page, Mr. Davis debunks the theory that you can scramble up the middle letters of a word any way you want to and still maintain readability. Behold:
  1. A vheclie epxledod at a plocie cehckipont near the UN haduqertares in Bagahdd on Mnoday kilinlg the bmober and an Irqai polcie offceir
  2. Big ccunoil tax ineesacrs tihs yaer hvae seezueqd the inmcoes of mnay pneosenirs
  3. A dootcr has aimttded the magltheuansr of a tageene ceacnr pintaet who deid aetfr a hatospil durg blendur
If you're like most people, these sentences get progressively more difficult. Yet they've all been scrambled according to the same rules: keep the first and last letters in place, and mix up the middle letters willy-nilly.

So, just in case you were wondering: No, this does not give you an excuse to stop giving a damn about spelling, or about proofreading. But it does explain why even the best proofreaders overlook some mistakes, especially when they're reading text quickly!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Bye, Borders

Well, it happened. A few months after it downsized and closed multiple stores, Borders is now giving up the ghost for good. Read more in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. By the end of September, all the stores will be gone.

So now my lament from March becomes a eulogy today.

It's Not About the Books

The more reactions I hear from people about Borders going out of business, the more I realize one thing.

Borders may be a giant bookstore. But the sadness accompanying its closing is not about the books at all.

No, people went to Borders for the experience. They went to browse through new arrivals and to check out the staff's picks. They went to lose themselves in the possibilities: seeing a new release by a favorite author, discovering a brand-new author, finding a gem that they might never have stumbled across ("treasure hunting," as one fan called it today online), and holding those gems in their hands. They went for the ways that a bookstore stimulates the senses: warm lighting, endless colorful book covers, artwork on the walls, the subdued murmurs of other customers, and the smell of coffee from the cafe. They went to feel like part of a community of people who love reading and learning. They went to Borders to be alone, or to meet up with friends. They stopped in on first dates, or with their children, or to kill time before a movie. They stayed a few minutes, or they stayed for hours. It was a destination. For book lovers, it was hard to leave the store without buying a book, because the rows upon rows of bookshelves were just too tempting, and you had to throw yourself into them and see what they might hold for you.

You can get books online. But you can't get those experiences online. And sure, you might get the same experiences at Barnes & Noble, or at a neighborhood bookstore. But Borders had so many locations all across America that, for many people, it was the only bookstore in the area. For many people, losing Borders means losing the bookstore experience for good.

It's sad news, Borders. We'll miss you.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Creating the Perfect Password

Sometimes I feel like a ridiculously large percentage of my brain is used by remembering all of the various passwords that I use in my life.

There must be dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds. There's a handful for work. One for my home computer. One for my bank. Several for each of the online bill sites that I visit to pay my bills. One for my health insurance company's site. One for my husband's health insurance company's site. The list goes on and on.

It's a bit maddening. My poor brain could be using those cells to store pleasant things, like fond memories of friends and family and good times. Yet those neurons are saddled with the most boring job description around: remember several strings of characters as well as which websites or computers those strings belong to.

The Master Password

Wouldn't it be great to have just ONE password for everything? Then you could send most of those poor beleaguered brain cells on vacation, and when they return, give them a brand-new and much more fun job.

But creating a master password would be complex. It would be both a science and an art. It would, in fact, be a feat of creative writing, on a tiny scale.

It would have to meet the following requirements at the very least:
  • Uncrackable, even by people who know you (no names of your pets, spouse, children, hometown, your username spelled backward, etc.)
  • Exactly 8 characters in length (I've seen sites that require at least 8 characters, and a few that require exactly 8 characters, but never any sites that require fewer than 8)
  • Easy for you to remember
  • Easily tweakable to meet the stringent requirements of certain sites. Here's what I mean by tweakable. Some sites require that your password contain only letters, while other sites require at least one number and one symbol in addition to letters. So an ideal password would allow characters to be swapped out easily for numbers or symbols. For instance, you could use the word migraine as your password, and if you encounter a site that requires a number and a symbol, you could substitute an exclamation point for the first i, and substitute the number 3 for the letter E, so that you get m!grain3.
That's a tall order. I don't even know if it's possible, given the many different requirements demanded by various computer systems.

And then, of course, there are the companies that require your password to be changed every few weeks. So you'd have to go through the entire master-password creation process again several times a year.

On second thought, I don't know that this would be a creative process after all. It might only be an exercise in futility. What do you think?