Infernal Memo

Let's Go!

2009-11-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, she's ready to roll over at WordPress. Click on this link and follow me to the next generation of Infernal Memo! (Don't forget to sign up for home delivery.)

Love to you all. All NINE of you! Stick with me. We'll go places (as long as you never befriend me :^).

The Things You Can do With Wire...

2009-11-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

Have a look at this guy's innovative use of his life energy. I hope you laugh like I did.

WordPress ho!

2009-11-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

Hang on.

InfernalMemo is moving. I don't know exactly when, but it'll be soon. In the next few days, I think. Unless I get really excited and skip reading my Times Colonist tonight in favour of setting up all the trinkets, widgets and thingmabobs over at WordPress. Then it might be a matter of hours.

But come with me, will you? I adore your company. Who would I write for, if not for you?

Things I'd Like to be Able to Do

2009-11-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

Dance like Britney Spears. I mean, come on. Scandals, periodic head shavings and crappy choices in life partners aside, she's amazing. Okay, I'll take more than just dancing like her. I'll take her fearless ability to give the finger to the media and the crowds who diss her at the same time that they lick her thigh-high bootheels. She is unapologetic about her persona and sticks up for herself. Most North American women can't say that much – and certainly not at 28. (I suppose I wouldn't complain if I woke up looking like her, either.)
Sing like Sarah McLachlan. I've tried for more than a decade now, to the amusement and chagrin of drivers all around me. But, lacking opera training, an eight-octave range and the vocal cords of an angel, I have ungraciously accepted that I will always sound like a frog in comparison. But I can still enjoy the goosebumps I get nearly every time I listen to her.
Write like Bill Bryson. He's observant, self-deprecating, and pee-your-pants funny: I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant... From time to time, like one of those nodding-duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart or so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling... I wake up to find that all motion within 500 feet has stopped and all children under eight are clutching their mothers' hems. It is a terrible burden to bear. It's such a rare gift to have this kind of imagery at the tips of one's fingers. And that's what good writing is all about: creating images in the reader's mind.
Politick like Arlene Dickinson. She's calm under pressure and respectful of the fragile egos that surround her in the Dragon's Den. She speaks her mind authentically and is careful not to imbue her language or tone with excess emotion. (In the world of business, the poker face is usually the one that wins. Think about it: how many emotionally expressive – or excessive – business leaders do you know? We want our leaders to be strong, decisive and devoid of hysteria. Peter Mansbridge, not Don Imus.)
Flirt like Joan Holloway. Do I even have to elaborate?

Beware of Bad Usage

2009-11-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

Just a few little tidbits I'd like to get off my chest.

It's poring, not pouring. When you open your books and settle in for a night of studying, you're poring over your studies. Not pouring. There are no liquids involved (unless you're one of those narcoleptic types who regularly falls asleep and drools on your textbooks).
It's amok, not amuck. Toddlers, sheep and geese – despite being filthy, germ-infested objects – do not run amuck. Running amuck is something you do if you're signed up for this muddy, sticky 5K in New York. Otherwise, it's amok. Never mind what Wikipedia says. (Looks like fun, though, doesn't it?)
Don't hone in on it. Honing is something you do to your spear, your public speaking skills, or your ability to get the funnybone out of the Operation guy without making his nose light up. It has nothing to do with underlining or zooming in on an idea. Hone your language.
It fazes me, okay? Unless you're an ice cube melting in the sun, or a gas sultrily condensing on the inside of Don Draper's windshield, you're not allowed to write: "It doesn't phase me." You heard it here first.

There. Now I can take the bloody sticky note off my wall.

Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin

2009-11-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

It's 5:09 p.m. I'm sitting in front of my computer. Today's work is nearly finished: I've floated a few half-baked article ideas to my editor at Douglas. I've drafted a few questions for another piece I'm writing about driving demand in the hotel market. I still have to gather a few writing samples together for a meeting tomorrow with the executive director of a national health organization (three cheers: professional growth!). I'm ticking things off in my daytimer. Farting around a bit on Facebook and LinkedIn. Feeling my wine, and wanting to write sassy emails to my favourite people.

And suddenly, I'm overwhelmed. Like, why am I trying to do so much? I've got irons in the fire with about a thousand different places right now, if only in my mind. A hotel profile. An article about janitors. One on famous dead British Columbians. One about an up-and-coming Victoria neighbourhood. Books to read. Twilight. The Shining. Dear Canada: A Ribbon of Shining Steel. A stack of magazines half a foot high. More. Canadian Geographic Travel. O. Douglas. Torch. Focus. Today's paper.

And I'm forced to backpedal a bit, to look at the situation. I see – in my mad workaholic desire to do more, capture more markets, work more efficiently – that I'm dividing up my eggs into waaaay too many baskets. Like, maybe seventeen, or thirty-five, or a hundred and eleven. And that's not a good way for me to work. I'm already scattered enough.

First, let me blame the fact that I'm in between projects. I've finished The Corporation's service plan and fundraising case statement. I've finished a couple small articles. I've submitted my novel manuscript to my publisher and am biding my time in secret terror that he hates every second word and wishes he never picked up the phone when I first called him those many months ago. (He's just such a great guy, though: have a look at his profile on page 26 of Boulevard.) I'm always nervous and at loose ends when I'm between projects. That's when my demons come back out. They want to have a bit of cozy shoulder time.

So I try to dream up new projects. But this is where I'm spreading myself too thin. Because what I really want, deep down in my soul, is to write books. I knew it years ago, so far back that I even wrote it in tidy pencilled letters in my Grade Two printing scribbler:

I would like to be a book writer when I grow up.

I can't deny what's been in my bones for at least 28 years. You'd think I'd be pursuing it with zeal. But what I find myself spending time on . . . is stuff that just takes me away from putting energy toward growing my career as a book writer.

We all feel kind of flustered and centrifuged when we spread ourselves too thin. Usually this shows up in its fiercest form during the holiday season, when there are myriad parties, dinners and open houses to attend. (And when there are dozens of gift bags of cookies, confections, spiced nuts and other sundry and assorted ass-fatteners to make, package and cheerily dole out to friends, teachers, colleagues and families so that I can secretly smirk about the caloric whop they pack and consequently feel better about the size of my own ass.) Needing to make phone calls or having too much to read spreads me too thin, too (see above). Some nights I even get freaked out that I have to budget time for the kids' bedtimes, a walk around the neighbourhood, a TV show and still fit in a bit of reading before bed. Too much to do. And I'm chronically sleep deprived as a result. (It doesn't help that Thing Two wakes me up at 5:20 every day, chirpy as a goddamned rainbow budgie.)

So. I need to start focusing on what's important. And that means chopping out the stuff that's not so important. Where do I start? I already ditched my hair appointment today in favour of saving those three hours of highlights. And today I recycled my Saanich News without even looking at it. I figure that'll save me another 20 minutes. What else can I pitch? My fabulously thick and luxurious LinkedIn network? The blog? Grocery shopping? Diaper changing?

Wait. I know: the shower. People will excuse my stench by virtue of the fact that I'm a writer.

People Who Forget The Power of the Media

2009-10-31T21:25:00.000-07:00

In the course of writing an article for a national hotel magazine recently, I was tasked to speak with a very specific list of people. They were on the "MUST CONTACT" list for the piece, which was about trends in beds and bedding. (Quick summary: mattresses should be fluffyplush; sheets should be hurt-your-eyes white; blankets are filthy and unacceptable to most guests, so you should only use duvets. Got that?)

So, being a good rule-follower, I dutifully called all the people on the MUST CONTACT list (plus a few hoteliers for good measure). There were about nine names on the must-call list. People from Serta, Sealy and Simmons, sure, but also national textile manufacturers and smaller regional distributors.

And wouldn't you know it? It's the funniest thing:
at the biggest companies, I was able to speak with either the head of the company or someone very close to the top. These Presidents, CEOs, Heads, Big Kahunas, Chiefs and Big Cheeses are only too happy to talk to someone who's in the magazine business. And they're generally very pleasant to talk to. Point: they understand that magazine articles reach a very broad audience. And they also understand that the audience of this very trade magazine consists of exactly the people who own and manage the same hotels to whom they try to sell their products. So they're really happy to speak with me about what's new and interesting in bedding trends. These people are what we know as media savvy.

But inevitably, there are the avoiders. For whatever reason, these people – who are probably completely great people – just don't want to speak with me. They abhor the idea. They dance around me. Sometimes they'll pass me along the chain of command, but more often than not, they just don't return my (unfailingly polite) calls and emails. These are the people who, once I manage to track them down on the phone, deliver some feeble words about needing to call me back later... and don't. Maybe they think I'm an investigative journalist, dying to blow the cover off their scandalous lives on The Fifth Estate.

In writing a profile for another hotel magazine this week, I interviewed the owner of a hotel in Trail, BC. (Hint: it's part of a big, famous international hotel chain. At this point in the story, you should know: I didn't just pick his name out of a hat. My publisher told me he had agreed to be profiled for the winter issue of the magazine.) Well. He was probably – no, he was for sure – the rudest guy I've ever spoken with for an article. Didn't listen to my questions (and so therefore didn't answer them). Shouted at me. Treated me like a seven-year-old. Went on at length about completely irrelevant topics like when the provincial government had its arm twisted hard enough to agree to recognize tourism as an important part of the BC economy. Back in, like, the 1970s. Repeated meaningless information. Repeated meaningless information. And then – get this – forbade me to speak with any other employees at his hotel. The same people he'd just raved about as being absolutely the best, most excellent staff.

Yep. What a charmer, eh? Let me tell you, I was just so excited to hang up the phone and write a thousand words about what a wonderful property this pleasant fellow operates.

As if. But although my feelings are hurt, he's the one who loses in the long run. Had he spoken calmly and practised good listening skills I'd have a whole lot of good things to say about why his management style has taken him this far. But as it stands, I didn't end up with much to say at all. His colleagues and competitors will never find out what a great guy he is to do business with (maybe), or how his staff looks up to him as a mentor and friend (maybe again), or how he manages to stay ahead in a quickly shifting marketplace (quite likely, since the magazine generally steers clear of profiling people who suck at running hotels).

Sometimes I think these people have an inflated sense of self-worth: Why should I stoop so low as to dish my trade secrets to a mere freelancer? But sometimes, I dunno, I think maybe they're just too dumb to realize that, if they speak frankly and treat me with the respect I show to them, the article I'm writing could be their ticket to a solid boost in sales or, better yet, a more polished professional reputation.

Rubbing Salt in the Wound (LinkedIn Fiasco: Part Two)

2009-10-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable and amazing. Shocking and mortifying. All. Over. Again.

I thought I'd gone through the whole LinkedIn thing. I thought it was over. I thought it was behind me. I was ready to move on.

But like an affair gone bad, it's coming back to haunt me one last time (cue the bunny-boiling music).

LinkedIn has bloody well sent a REMINDER email to ... well... to everyone in my contact list. Everyone, that is, who wasn't bullied into signing up the first time. Here's the brilliantly written copy that barks yet another round of orders at my group of friends, colleagues and complete strangers all over again:

Dear xxxxx,

This is a reminder that on October 15, Alexandra Van Tol sent you an invitation to become part of their professional network at LinkedIn. (Excellent agreement in this sentence, no?)

Follow this link to accept Alexandra Van Tol's invitation.

D'you see a please anywhere? D'you see a thank you?

Man. If I could go back in time I'd make October 15, 2009 The Day That Never Happened.

That said, I have a friend who found the whole mixup hilarious – and hilariously effective at instantly establishing a fantastic network with lots of high-cred people. She's thinking about doing the same thing that I did, only knowingly. Is that kind of like guerrilla marketing? What do you think about that?

When Good Things Happen to Stupid People

2009-10-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so maybe "stupid" is too strong a self-descriptor. But it's how I felt earlier this week, when I sent out an accidental invitation to LinkedIn to pretty much everyone in my electronic world.

I'm over it now. In fact, I've had a few good laughs about it, and I guess my hastily appended apology email made a few other people chuckle, too.

You know how they say every cloud has a silver lining? Here's what came out of the whole embarrassing snafu. The managing editor at my favourite Canadian magazine, More, called me up yesterday. Turns out one of her staffers got the apology email. And it made her laugh, too. So – bless her pointed head – she forwarded it to the managing editor. (I'm not sure how the editor didn't get the email herself, as I've pitched a few things to her in the past. Maybe her spam filters have more sophisticated idiot detectors than other people's do.)

Anyway. The managing editor called me up and said these few words, which totally made my day: "We want to run your apology email in the front of our magazine. Is that OK with you?"

Two words: right on. Now, if I can only get her to join my LinkedIn network...

LinkedIn: Linking Me Up With...Pretty Much Everybody

2009-10-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

How many times have you been reminded to read the fine print? And how often do any of us really read the fine print? I, for one, can tell you I've never read through my life insurance policy. Nor my car insurance policy, nor my house insurance policy, nor my critical illness insurance policy, nor my retirement group benefits booklets (and pamphlets and leaflets and packages). And I've never read through those online agreement thingies where you have to click "I Accept" in order to get to the next page. I mean, who does?

But refusing to read the fine print backfired on me yesterday morning, when I signed up for LinkedIn. See, I've known about LinkedIn for a number of months now, but just haven't bothered to sign up for it because:

I can barely keep track of my blog, email, Twitter and Facebook accounts, let alone another social networking site
I'm forever running out of time to remember to read the blogs that I promise people I'm following, and
I've heard mixed reviews about the efficacy of LinkedIn as a good networking tool, anyway.

But yesterday morning, all that changed. I was desperate to send an email to a man I'd spoken with the day before in researching an article for Western Hotelier. I didn't want to call him again (that's annoying), so I decided to Google him and fetch his email that way. The best Google could do was to point me toward his LinkedIn profile, but LinkedIn wouldn't let me in until I... well, linked in.

So there I am at bloody well 6:45 in the morning (I start early), dicking around and filling in field after field to get a profile set up on LinkedIn so I can just get this guy's damn email address. I'm not at all thinking about how, once my profile goes public, it'll look piteously devoid of information or professional accomplishments. I don't care. I just want to find this guy and tell him the magazine needs a few photos to accompany the article I'm writing.

At one point in the signup process – a really important point, it turns out – I'm asked whether I want to send an invitation to my contacts to join LinkedIn. My eyes light briefly on a page of names, each with a neat check mark beside it. They're names I recognize. Good: this is easy. Sure, why not? Might as well invite the people I email most frequently to join up. Whatever. Just get me to a place where I can find this guy's email address. So I click "yes" and am mercifully admitted to The Club. Congratulations! You're now LinkedIn!

Woot. Okay, where's this guy's email address? Ah. There it is. I grab it, close the browser window, and dive back into my work.

About 10 minutes later I check my email (I'm terrible for this; it's a sick compulsion. I check it every few minutes if I'm at the computer, unless I'm deep inside a work of fiction.). My initial surprise turns to shock, and then to that bowel-gripping oh-shit-what-have-I-done feeling as I count the emails flooding my inbox. There's, like, 20. They're all from LinkedIn. And they're all from people who have accepted my invitation and linked to me. (In the span of 10 minutes! Don't these people have anything better to do than check their email? God.)

More drop into my inbox as I sit and stare at the embarrassing mess. Garth, Diane, Karla, Norman: okay. Cool. Wow, look at this! I feel so popular! Shelagh: hey, man! Where have you been? So great that you're OK with being in my network. How's life as an award-winning writer living in Montreal?

But there are other names, too. Names that I'd forgotten all about, names I don't recognize at all, and names that I don't feel like having in my little professional network.

Surely I didn't invite them all, did I? Did I?

Ah, but now I'm thinking back to that page with all the checked contacts, and the terrible truth dawns on me: I've unwittingly extended a terse, bossy and completely impersonal LinkedIn invitation to EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. that I've ever emailed in the last decade. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds – including people I've never even spoken to, much less met. Including people whom I have been meaning to reach out to for ages, but just haven't found the time to do so. Including people I've only spoken with in doing research for articles about hotels or pubs or plastic surgery or olive oil. Including people whom I haven't spoken with in years. Including one friend who no longer wants to be my friend at all, at all, and most certainly won't want to be part of my little LinkedIn orgy. Including people who are very, very busy owners of corporations and presidents of companies and managers of hotels and publishers of books and editors of magazines. Christ, there's even a venture capitalist in there. I wonder if he's wondering where the hell I get the nerve?

I kind of feel like the proverbial schoolkid in the dream who looks down to discover she's not wearing any clothes. It's a drafty, exposed kind of feeling. Kind of like once you've been seen this way (either naked or a disorganized and unprofessional spaz, take your pick), there's no going back.

So now the repair work begins. I'm excited to have sprouted a network of 45 people in the span of a mere 24 hours. But before my network grows any bigger with PR people and admissions directors and other salesy types who are all too eager to add to their own burgeoning networks (and what about the freaky people I've spent years trying to kiss off?), I need to send out yet another email. This time, it'll be an apology to the initial recipients– all 1089 of them. Especially to the good people who are standing by in silent confusion, either wondering who the hell I am, or where I get off demanding that they join my network. I need to apologize, excuse myself, promise not to trouble them again, and then disappear into the ether.

Lesson learned: read the fucking fine print.

On Long Walks and Great Lyrics

2009-10-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

So Penelope Trunk's been kicking my ass to choose a blog topic. But that's OK. I think it's time anyway. After reading the last few posts, it seems that writing – or some facet of it – comes up in nearly every entry. So let's just settle this once and for all. InfernalMemo will be a blog about writing. Even the name alludes to the craft.

Onward. Today's topic: long walks and great lyrics.

A few weeks ago, I went on a really, really, REALLY long walk. Fifty-six kilometres around Cowichan Lake, to be exact. It was the second-longest twelve hours of my life. In a paroxysm of solidarity, I had decided to join a friend who was walking to raise money for brain cancer in honour of her late husband. Might've been easier just to shell out my donation, but I reasoned that I'd up her fundraising power by gathering pledges from my own network.

So we start at 5:00 in the morning from the Youbou town hall, a huge giggling gaggle of us in a fine mist of drizzle. We walk through the woods. Walk through the forest. Walk through the trees, then the clearcuts, then the trees, the forest and the woods again. (There were some thickets and groves in there, too.) Having split from my friend's fast-paced posse at the first checkpoint, I find myself blissfully alone with my iPod.

Three things I'll know for next time:

duct tape every inch of my feet before starting, not after I've been on the road for 10 km
train up properly, making sure I've prepared my poor, overtaxed hip flexors better, and
pick the right bloody music for my iPod.

I figure an entire day of walking will be a wonderful, peaceful time all to myself. No kids smashing each other over the heads with action figures; no deadlines pressing in; no kids smashing each other over the heads with action figures. (Oops: did I write that twice?) So I load up my iPod with as many flutes, harps and birds as I can find.

It is peaceful for the first couple of hours. The sun's coming up, my hips feel great and Deuter is zenning me out with his hands of light. An hour or so later, I've popped a couple of Advils and I'm dancing around on the path with all the other imaginary Single Ladies. (Yes, dancing. There are some songs that I just cannot keep still to.)

But the Beyonce buzz eventually wears off. And I don't feel like meditating any more, either. I'm craving more dance music, but there's none on my playlist.

A couple hours later, I'm good and pissed. My feet hurt, my hips hurt, my ultralite pack is pinching my shoulders, and I need something angry. I suffer through as many oversexed Chili riffs as I can. I listen to Feist's entire Let it Die album and decide that Mushaboom is the only good song on it. I was right three years ago, and I'm right today. Let that one die. I try a bit of Stevie Wonder, but by this time I'm not in the mood for happy boogie. I'll kill myself if I hear any more Jack Johnson. I skip Raffi, too.

Scroll.

Here's the funny thing about listening to music through earbuds when you have absolutely nothing to do but walk. The music fills your head and precludes all thought of everything else. And you have no choice but to hear every word that's being sung. Jamiroquai? Mmmmm, nah. Simon & Garfunkel's At The Zoo: right on.

Scroll.

Ah. Jane's Addiction. Perfect! I haven't listened to Nothing's Shocking in at least ten years. But after listening to the whole album and feeling completely sorry for myself that I'm no longer allowed to smoke, I decide that Perry Farrell incorporates young children into his lyrics a bit too frequently for me to feel completely at ease listening to their music ever again.

Scroll.

Hm. I'm going to save the Hip until I really need them. I'll pass on Gordon Lightfoot for now... how about Great Big Sea? They're a bit of a cheery group, but can bang out a good ballad with lots of percussion and shouty vocals. I'm swept away by the sad story behind the Chemical Worker's Song but I find the rest of their songs to be too cutesy to take me out of my pain.

I listen to the whole album, but I need something deep and terrible right now, not a happy-slappy ale-swilling maritime band.

There's no Pearl Jam, no Johnny Cash, no Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana.

I've saved the best for last. It's all I've got. Even round two of Beyonce fails to excite my exhausted, screaming feet. Bring out the Tragically Hip. Maybe Gord Downie and his men can pull me out of myself and carry me the rest of this long hard road.

And by Christ, they do. I slide along inside their complex funkalicious grooves, rapt with the discovery of such head-splittingly good songwriting. I smell John Mellencamp in these chords, and I love it. It's not terrible music, but it's deep, and full of layers, and crammed with stuff to think about. Gord and the knights of the Hip carry me through the last agonizing miles, to the finish line, my time of 11:48, my prize bag, the most satisfying Whopper in the history of mankind, and several weeks of uncomfortable recuperation.

Was it worth it? Probably not, for the pain and the damage I've undoubtedly wreaked on my poor body. But it was an honour, and a challenge. And I learned a thing or two about what separates the merely good from the truly great.

The Lure of Corporatese

2009-10-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine hosts a funny, acerbic blog over at Points of Rue. You should check out his post about deep fried gonads... it's a good 'er.

But anyway, I'm not here to talk about Doug's nuts or anything like that. The subject of today's post is the evil sneakingness of Corporatese. Let me tell you where my buddy fits into this discussion.

A few months back, I went for coffee with this pal – the second of two coffees in our two-coffee-long friendship which now spans nearly four years. (We were introduced – electronically – by a friend who thought I might be able to bag a bit of writing work in Rue's department. It never panned out that way. His shop rarely outsources work; I wasn't ready to step into a full-time writing job and leave my little guy at home. But we struck up a friendship of sorts.)

Anyway, at this second of two coffee dates, we talked a bit about blogging. Rue had left off blogging at that point, whereas I was just getting started with Infernal Memo and was terribly excited about the idea of spending hours and hours sitting on my ass, doing for free what I normally get paid triple the Canadian national hourly wage to do. We sipped our lattes. We talked about our kids. We talked about picture books – how they're charmingly simple to read yet nearly impossible to write. We talked about the (paid) writing each of us was doing, both moving forward and upward in our respective spheres. And we talked about one of the worst problems plaguing any arm of any existing public agency anywhere in the world: the dreaded Corporatese. You know, the kind of completely impenetrable written legal or government gobbledygook that imparts unilaterally uncomplicated cogitations via assiduously obfuscatory language.

Now, The Corporation is pretty good in terms of keeping its language clean. Apart from the odd huge list cleverly disguised as a really, really long sentence, I don't have to take a jackhammer to many of The Corporation's pre-existing written documents. Generally, I just take the long, boring sentences apart and put them back together with bossy verbs to drive around the smaller, snappier segments. So when Rue launched into a foaming-at-the-mouth rant (well, not really, but I'm all over the strong imagery) about the prevalence of Corporatese over on his side of the street, naturally I wanted to listen.

"Why," he raged, "why do they have to use four words when just one will do? Why say 'desired future end state'? Why don't they just say goal?"

And I got to thinking about this today, because as I was finishing The Corporation's service plan, it struck me that, somewhere between the Strategic Context and the Performance Measures, I'd let myself slip ever so slightly into the reassuring head-nodding drone of Corporatese. Suddenly ugly things like "fostering revenue generation through brand-centred, fiscally-responsible, high-opportunity initiatives" were invading my tightly written, action-packed document. I found myself not only "providing specific marketing objectives and strategies" but complementing it with "an implementation plan and supporting financial documentation." It was bad. Especially since I had no farking clue what kind of financial documentation could possibly support a plan that hadn't even been implemented. And what was the plan about, anyway?

House of cards, right there.

Is this what happens after a certain length of time? Do we all get sucked along in the swirling, soothing waters of multisyllabication? Is it our general tendency to err on the side of pompous?

I guess I'm guilty as charged. You'd think, being such a mouthpiece for simple language, I'd have simply put writer under my name on my business card.

But you'd be wrong. Think about it: who would you rather hire to ghostwrite your autobiography? A writer?

Or a nimble purveyor of the written word?

What was I saying?

2009-09-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

I had a discussion over tea with a friend/mentor (friendtor?) at The Corporation today. He's the publisher, actually. Has been working there for about 20 years now. Before that, he was at Presse Porc-Epic, which split, as publishing houses are wont to do, into a couple other incarnations. He wasn't too happy at that prickly old publishing house anyway, so he made the move over to The Corporation, and hasn't done too badly there. He puts out some nice stuff. Books on rabbits and ship china and dragonflies and man-eating carnivores and even his own very cool book last year.

Come to think of it, GT is a big part of why I am where I am today. He's one of a very few people who responded to a cold-call letter I sent him a few years back. Okay, he's the only one who responded. I was looking for editing work. I had almost no formal experience – just a conviction that I had a good grip on the language. And the balls to go around telling people so.

Well. Thank god GT lives life on the edge and hires people who are bold and egotistical. He opened the door, inviting me in to write articles for The Corporation's magazine. I guess I did OK at that, because a few years later, when The Corporation was looking for a new contract writer, he put my name forward. A couple conversations with People Who Had The Power to Hire Me ensued. And behold: a corporate writer was born.

(GT's a modest guy, too. He squirmed when I bought him a bottle of rum to say thanks for basically changing the entire direction of my life.)

But. Love him though I do, this post isn't about him. It's about...

... what was I going to write about, again?

Oh yeah. GT and I got to talking about kids' books. And somehow that led to a conversation about attention spans. How nowadays, kids' attention spans have shrunk to the point where they can't, don't or won't really read books like they used to. How, in the adult world, the length of magazine articles has shrunk by several hundred words so that busy people can chew through an item in a single sitting. How the leads for those same articles have become the most important part of the whole piece: if you can't grab people's interest right off the top, there's no way they're going to read the whole thing. (And although this didn't make it into today's conversation: how blog posts should be kept short and to the point, too. Note to self: shut up and say something.)

We also lamented how – even as professional writers – our own attention spans have dwindled. We work for a few minutes, check our email, make a phone call, read over our to-do list, get back to work and then decide to break for lunch. So anyway, I um... I was thinking that...

... are you still reading this?

... yeah, I was thinking that maybe we... maybe I should...

Maybe I should check my email.

The most versatile word in the English language

2009-09-21T20:40:00.001-07:00

It's magical. It's flexible. And best of all, it will identify the quality of your character immediately. (Or so they tell me.)

Have a great laugh. I did.

The Etiology of Organizing

2009-09-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've made the move. From the corner office to the basement. While it sounds like a bit of a demotion, it's actually OK: I no longer work in a four foot space in the farthest northeast reaches of the dining room. I no longer bang my chair against the dining table when I push back from the computer, and I no longer have a small, sticky two-year-old come and hang off my arms or pound on my keyboajyyzanyrk while I'm working.

Instead, I'm down here, with the ants and spiders and washing machine and kitty litter. I light scented candles and pretend I'm on a Beach Vacation or perhaps in Grandma's Kitchen. I keep my bare feet off the floor. My view, as well as the size of my windows, has shrunk. Where I once enjoyed a panorama of our leafy, private backyard haven from our double French doors, I now look up into the underbelly of our deck. It's dark. It's quiet.

It's awesome.

Somehow, with the move, I've been able to jettison my supper-preparation duties. I'll enjoy the break for as long as it takes for my husband to realize that he's actually holding a very short, smelly stick. For now, I'll revel in the 6 p.m. IM that invariably pops up in the corner of my screen: SUPPER!

But just because I'm in a new space doesn't mean I've left my problems behind. There's nothing like a move to remind you how disorganized you are. Now, I'm no slouch at keeping things tidy. But there's a difference between tidy and ... well ... organized. When I was a teacher, I used to call myself a 'piler'. (Actually, piling is recognized as an organizational style – and research has shown that pilers are no less organized overall than people who file every document. We know exactly what's in each pile. We're just ... not organized.) Whereas some colleagues left their desks clean – actually empty – at the end of the day, the best I could do was to square the edges of my three or four piles of paper and blow off the eraser dust. I figured if my desk wasn't exactly clean, it was a sight better than the dumper's down the hall.

When I left teaching for writing, I stopped being a piler. I no longer had the luxury of acres of flat surfaces to pile my shit on. I got into the habit of filing things in binders, boxes or folders. But the problem was that I didn't put things in order. And suddenly – after a 18 months of making a living as a writer – I am realizing that being a 'binderer' or a 'boxer' isn't quite enough, either. So I've had to go through my boxes (not the binders yet; I'm not ready to face the binders) and section off my magazine collection according to how they fit within my world. Trade mags in one box; back issues of Boulevard in another; current publications in a third; possible markets in a fourth; and educational publications in boxes five and six. Not bad.

Books have been shelved according to height, mostly – I know, it's an organizational flaw, but my eyes just couldn't take it any other way. And no, I did not purchase that copy of Coping with Trauma; that's just one of my mother's complicated projections in the form of a very thoughtful Christmas gift. Gee, thanks Mum. I'm glad you think I'm so fucked up. (Notice how it's still wrapped in cellophane? Yeah.) I will, however, own up to having exactly nine books on how to raise un-fucked up kids. I wonder if there's a connection?

All this navel-gazing aside, let's think for a moment about the word organizing. It's a good word, and it makes me feel peaceful just thinking about it. But why organize? Typically, when you ize something you're making that something into a representation of the first bit of the word, like terrorize or alphabetize or mechanize or even euthanize. (Although I suppose there are exceptions: lionize being one.) So when I break organize down, I get... organs. Hmm. That doesn't give me quite the same feeling of peace... but I guess it makes sense. Our bodies are composed of organs – one organ to accomplish each particular function. But when do we actually make something into organs?

I mean, isn't that called disembowelment?

Excuse me: I'm afraid I have to go now. I gotta go disembowel an entire room.

Facebook is getting harder

2009-09-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

After resisting for months, I gave in last spring and established a profile on Facebook. May, I think it was. It was so exciting at first – intoxicating, really. I added a friend every day, judiciously weighing who I was extending my private life to. I was – and still am – careful not to have too many photos. Careful not to put too much personal information up there for the world to see.

I posted often – sometimes several times a day – in those early heady weeks. I watched carefully what other people wrote for their status updates, and I decided that I most liked the cryptic ones. The ones that really got me curious about the meaning behind the message. They seemed to be the most likely to draw a comment from a friend – the most likely to spark a conversation. And I love those back-and-forth Facebook conversations. Who wouldn't want to know more about why "Beau Wilkinson wishes she could"?

Then a friend sent me this article, called "The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers". I figured she wouldn't be sending it to me if I was an annoying Facebooker. So I clicked on the link and sat back for a good read with my coffee (always, always with my coffee). And – even though she probably didn't really think so at all – I realized that, shit oh shit, I'm probably an annoying Facebooker. I admit to having been an Obscurist. But oh god, was I a Self-Promoter, too?

Since reading that piece on CNN.com, I have for the most part stopped posting cryptic updates. I have stopped posting as often as I used to. In fact, because Facebook weirds me out so much now, I've pretty much stopped posting anything at all.

See, back when I had just a handful of Facebook friends, I felt okay about sharing the dumb things that went through my mind. I felt okay about making cheeky statements and putting my opinions out there. I knew that the people in my little friend box were all either current friends, fond acquaintances, writerly types or trusted relatives.

I even gladly added some people from my old high school. Even though they're not all friends of mine – though some are – they seemed fairly innocuous. After all, they knew me better than probably anyone else on Facebook (including trusted relatives). And to be honest, I liked seeing the number on my little friend ticker grow.

Then the true and staggering power of Facebook opened itself up to me. People found me. People whom I hadn't at all considered adding as friends. People whom I hadn't at all considered, period. But that little box in the upper right hand corner of the screen kept bleating out friend requests. And I kept adding them. Because it seemed rude to ignore them.

So now, Facebook has become much more complex. I have friended several people who know me in a professional sense, which makes it impossible – or ill-advised – for me to make wisecracks about my work ethic or about the corporate world. I have friended a parent of one of my ex-students, plus my 12-year-old niece, which makes it impossible for me to write anything about wanting desperately to drink wine all day long. I have friended at least two people who I wish I could unfriend, but I'm so afraid they'll realize it and hate me for it that I keep them in the pile. I have friended some friends and their husbands while leaving other spouses out of the mix entirely. Two women I desperately want to friend – one my ex-best friend, the other a girl I used to diss in high school but who now has grown up and become a writer for CBC Radio – are ignoring me. (How can I apologize if she won't let me in?) And, in a stunning display of stupidity, I've friended my tenants, which precludes me from grumbling about their loud thumping bass or suspecting aloud that they invite their friends over and then do their laundry for them. I can't possibly unfriend them now: they live in my basement! They'll find out for sure and burn the house down. My head aches.

Now I'm a shell of my former vibrant Facebook self. I'm just another silent observer, too freaked out to draw attention to myself.

I still feel an immature stab of envy when I look at a friend's page and see they've got more than 150 friends. I seem to have topped out at around 75. Whether that's because: a) I'm becoming increasingly picky; b) people think I'm a loser; or c) I'm beginning to show my generally neurotic nature in a more public forum, has yet to be determined.

My bet's on c). After all, if I make my living as a writer, how come – after it's been live for over nine months – I've only invited a dozen people to read Infernal Memo?

The Thief of Time

2009-09-14T19:26:00.001-07:00

It's procrastination, in case you were wondering. If there's a better adage by which I should live my life, let someone please bring it forward. Otherwise, I'm sticking with Edward Young's words (first shared with me by my Grade 8 English teacher, Ms Brigid Stewart):

"Procrastination is the thief of time."

And why am I writing this post, all these many months after Infernal Memo has lain dormant?

Why, I'm procrastinating, of course. There's work to be done – a novel to be written – so why not bang out a blog post while I'm waiting for it to write itself?

Things I learned this week

2009-02-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

Things I learned this past week:

1. People have more sex during a recession. I'm fully stumped on this one.

2. Four wiry mixed-breeds are strong enough to pull my ass (and the rest of me, too) across 10 kilometres of snow and ice. Last Saturday I suited up in my husband's parka and my friend's boots (and her mitts and snowpants too), and joined eleven other people for an afternoon of dogsledding in Whistler's Soo Valley. I took my voice recorder with me. (I was on assignment, of course: do you really think I've got $169 to drop on an experience that lasted only 40 minutes from start to finish and scared the shit out of me pretty much the entire time? No. Fortunately for me, Outdoor Adventures Whistler comped my trip. And let me give a shout-out to their excellent guides while I'm on the subject, because they were fabulous.)

I bravely/foolishly agreed to drive a sled all by myself. Fell straight off it at the turnaround point, which almost NO ONE does. And which resulted in a runaway dogsled, lots of walkie-talkie shouting between the guides, four tangled dogs in harness and a stalled line of sleds as everyone waited for me to get it together.

I got it together (and stood on the brake the entire way back).

3. I want to write for CBC radio. In fact, I want to write, produce and voice programs for CBC radio. I learned this about myself while reading Mary Lou Finlay's The As It Happens Files, which (oddly enough) is a book about the long-running CBC Radio One show As It Happens. AIH airs every weeknight at 6:30 p.m. (PST) and I adore it. I started listening years ago, when Barbara Budd shared the airwaves with Michael Enright, and I still listen when I get the chance. I love how every now and then, an interviewer on AIH comes out with something that stops me in my tracks and makes me go, "I can't believe she just said that!" (Other people say that about me all the time. Why not join the team?)

4. Too many adverbs kill good writing.

Part A. Technically, I was aware before this week of the good-writing-killingness of adverbs, but I was reminded of it when I recently spotted an article I published several months ago. I hardly recognize it anymore. Somewhere in the intervening weeks between submission and publication, someone stuck a bellows full of meaningless descriptors up the article's ass and jumped on it. For example, changing "beautiful" to "extraordinarily beautiful" just seems... extraordinarily unnecessary. And since we're already in the ring with descriptors, superfluous is one that springs to mind to describe the above act of literary bludgeoning. Beautiful is pretty much as pretty as it gets, no?

Please don't think I'm a conceited arse who can't handle other people's critiquing of my work. I'm totally in support of others changing my words to make them stronger, or to convey my message in a more effective manner – I know several editors who do this as a matter of course. Good editing enhances any message. Competent tinkering makes me happy. Prying apart tight verbiage to insert wads of cotton fluff pisses me off.

And – although it's not an adverb – I'm really mad about the word "noggin" suddenly making an appearance in said article: "As important as our noggins are, facial features can't carry the day on their own." In fact, this entire sloppy sentence was taped and glued and stapled atop an existing paragraph, effectively punching a hole in a previously airtight section. Bummer.

(And who the fark uses "noggin" anyway? I mean, come on.)

B. I welcome the addition of WestShore to Victoria's already crowded magazine scene. I just wish they'd hire an editor who's not afraid to nuke flowery writing. Get a load of this sentence, which describes a new urban park being designed in the municipality of Langford:

"By the summer of 2010 the vision will be a reality as people share a quiet moment on a bench near the wetland pond as children cavort amid gales of laughter in the water park a short walk away."

It's long, yes, but that's not a problem in and of itself. Grammatically, it's stable. It's structurally weak, but holding.

But. If a gale is the same thing to you as it is to me, then we can both see that gales of laughter don't fly in this setting. Peals, maybe. Peals are nice, like bells ringing. Kids could do peals. Peals are light. They drift on the breeze. Gales don't. Gales are forceful and uncontrolled, on the thin edge of decency. Gales come from smoke-hoarsened drunkards slapping their thighs over jokes in the pub.

Similarly, the quiet moment being shared by the "people" on the bench is shattered by all the cavorting amid those gales of laughter happening in the nearby waterpark. Does the writer not see this? (And what's with the people? I mean, are there eight of them? Why not a couple, or friends? People makes me think of milling groups, not mellow dyads with their heads together.)

Semantics, sure. But it's all about getting the image right.

And whether we like it or not, image is everything.

Blogging is arrogant

2009-02-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Oh dear. I hadn't thought of it this way before, but it's actually a perfect descriptor.

Evidently, I'm an asshole.

Here, I'm going to let Nick Carr do the explaining on this one. His article nails exactly what I was struggling to convey in my last post about the whole Krazy Glue thing.

Why writing scares me

2009-02-12T19:55:00.001-08:00

Here's why writing as a career freaks me out a bit:

1. I'll never escape living hand to mouth. It's pretty much a project-to-project existence around here. And for most writers – except those brilliant and fortunate souls like Nick Schenk or Harper Lee – it stays that way for most of their productive years. Nice thing is that you can still write, and earn money, well into your retirement years. Which I will absolutely have to, because see, there's:

2. No pension. Not that pensions are worth a whole lot these days either, but still. There's no nice matchy-match program happening with my employers. No monthly contributions... to anything. (Except the kids' RESPs – they deserve an education even if I don't believe universities are going to offer any sort of relevant preparation for the working world they'll face once they've graduated from high school.)

3. No one knows where print media is headed. I like to think that I'll be able to write for the Big Magazines one day in the near future, but then I start to get all shivery when I think about the hundreds of reporters, journalists and staff writers who are being thrown out of work as magazines and newspapers succumb to the reality behind their plummeting sales across the continent. There's some steenking stiff competition out there for magazine writing, and it's only going to get stiffer.

And let's not even talk about books, OK?

This guy thinks there'll be a pretty weak market for online news, too, considering how quickly news loses relevance and how easy it is to procure and pass around. But that's OK: I'm not a reporter. I'm a... I don't know what the hell I am, but I sure don't live and die by breaking news. I'm not a nosy soul by nature and couldn't care less if I'm the first to report on a story. (Maybe that's why I kind of suck at Twitter?)

4. Writing goes on around the clock. This might actually be due to my own peculiar inefficiencies, where I spend as much time as humanly possible farting around online before I actually get started on my assignments. I've always been far too lenient with indulging my inner child. That's why cookies don't last more than a day in my house. And why I refuse to go down into the basement.

5. It's so... personal. Writing anything for the consumer market is necessarily exposing. For me, at least. Because I draw upon my personal life – and my personality – so much in my writing, I end up feeling a little bit more nekked every time I put a piece out there in the public domain. Case in point: a few weeks ago when I was dropping my son off at preschool, the teacher winked at me and called me "DuMaurier girl."

...?

I was confused for a few days (a not uncommon state of affairs), until I happened to be rereading and critiquing an article I'd written for Boulevard a few months prior and stumbled across an author bio mentioning my old addiction to cigarettes. Oh! That's where the teacher had gotten "DuMaurier girl" from.

The stupid thing was I'd written the author bio myself. (This is how my brain works. Or doesn't work, depending on how you see things.)

A little bit of me gets stuck to each piece I write, like the thin layer of skin that's sheared off by an accidental run-in with Krazy Glue. It's freaky, for a relatively private person. See, I'm a very public person on paper, and a very private person in the flesh. Maybe that's a stupid way to be.

And here I am, writing a blog. Largely about myself. And I'm complaining that it's too personal.

(Yes, folks. It all happens here in my head.)

I need a pen name. Suggestions?

Things I'm Happy About Today

2009-02-10T21:46:00.001-08:00

(Apologies if the fonts are wonky when you arrive here... Blogger's headed for the trash when I make a break for WordPress in a few days' time. A name change may be in the works... so please leave a comment if you've got any feedback about Infernal Memo.)

Today a buddy told me I should stick to the Seinfeld style of blogging, because he likes reading my writing when it's about nothing. Says he can hear the words like I'm sitting across from him, which is great. That's called having a developed VOICE. And I'm stoked to have that, because that's what it's all about. For me, anyway. In the magazine world – which is where I spend all my free reading time – writers like Cindy Chupack, Lisa Kogan, Kim Pittaway and Martha Beck have a style I've loved for years. Observant, funny, acerbic and real. In other words, great voice.

So I guess this first point makes the list as the first thing I'm happy about today:

1. Having a good voice.

2. Praise from on high. I received this as part of an email from the new editor at Boulevard when I submitted my articles two days ago: "I see you have a feel for good rhythm in your writing, lots of energy and variety." Booyah! She's no slouch, either. She just so happens to be the highly credentialed Vivian Smith.

3. Fitting into a fantastically sexy new pair of jeans from Gap. At least, I think they're sexy. (Any pants that make my bum look OK – especially when I haven't been working out for months – make me really, really happy. Even if they cost me $85.) And they're long enough for my legs, too. No flooding here. Not even a drop.

4. Gaining a subscriber. I love you, whoever you are. May Infernal Memo remain worthy of your time.

5. Dreaming of a little log cabin on a lake. Whether it's in my future or not, it's in my head. Since forever I've enjoyed the recurring image of me standing on a dock in the morning mist, coffee in hand and gazing out over a small tree-lined lake. (They're coniferous trees, not deciduous trees. This is an important distinction, somehow.) I'm wearing a Cowichan ice wool sweater. You know: those really thick, heavy sweaters with nice knitted patterns and zippers up the front. The morning is grey. Everything in the image, in fact, is in shades of grey: my sweater, the mug, the fog, the dock. No one but me is in the picture. What does this mean? Is there someone standing behind me? Someone in the house behind me? It's my house, and it's on this lake. But why do I feel like it's in Ontario somewhere? Is this just Margaret Atwood crossover in my neural circuitry? I'm a raised-in-Alberta, moved-to-BC girl. How did I get here, on this dock? How old am I?

In the dreamscape, I am a writer. Even before I decided I couldn't ignore the signs any longer and actually committed to being a writer, I knew this picture was of me as a writer. I think this very image was one of the Five Things that Shaped my Development as a Writer.

Bet you're wanting to know what the other four are, right?

Soon. Soon.

In the interests of full editorial disclosure, I should balance this woo-lookit-me post with one HUGE thing that I'm really mad about:

1. Vehicular bullshittery. The old/new car (yes, my blue baby) was declared in need of a full complement of brake-related components today. That means rotors, pads, shoes, calipers and "some kind of wire" (this last bit from my husband). Oh, so sad. Oh, so not having a spare $1K to drop on a 31-year-old vehicle that costs $75 a month to insure for all of the 26.74 kilometres I drive it in the span of 30 days.

You may laugh spitefully now.

In Conversation: Nick Schenk, Hollywood Screenwriter

2009-02-08T22:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, hooRAY! I'm back at the blog. After a weekend of torturous discipline (must work before play, must work before play, must work! before! play!) I can flex my fingers in a way that pleases only ME.

And perhaps you, too. That's my hope.

There were a number of ideas floating around in my head for today's post, including the contents of my pithy conversation this afternoon with screenwriter Nick Schenk, all about what it's like to be a sudden Hollywood screenwriter in the wake of penning a SMASH hit like Gran Torino.

Here's what it's like: gravy train, baby. Gravy train. (My words, not Nick's.)

In case you didn't know – because I didn't until I looked it up on Wikipedia just now – Gran Torino was Clint Eastwood's highest grossing film. Ever. (I know. It's okay. I sobbed a bit too, when I read that.)

And to answer the question I suspect is burning inside your little hat right now: I know Nick due to an entirely random burst of cosmic energy that led him to meet and begin dating my friend's sister.

This cloudy February afternoon found us at my friend's baby shower (twins!), drinking coffee in the kitchen and immersed in a conversation that rendered us pretty much useless and probably very much in the way of all the people who were cleaning up around us as we stood there and talked about how difficult it is to keep your shit on straight when you're pitching one of your new scripts to a group of industry insiders that includes people like Steve Carell. Whose hair, apparently, is really, really thick. Like, distractingly thick. Animalian thick. (Nick's words, not mine.) Thick enough to make it hard to focus on the script you're pitching. Which in turn makes it hard to break the ice and get people – not just people, but comics – to laugh and warm up to your ideas. Which makes it hard to believe that you could possibly be any good at what you do, that anybody would want to produce the stuff you write, or that you actually even belong in the same room with people whose hair is not only distractingly thick but really, really famous.

Except Nick does belong in that room, because he's great at what he does: write stories. He's so very good at writing stories that Mr. Eastwood didn't change a word of the original screenplay for Gran Torino.

That's pretty cool. It reinforces my belief that there's a whole whack of incredible, jaw-dropping, expectation-busting talent strewn about in the population at large. Who's to say the woman in the next cubicle is any less musically talented than Feist? Who can prove that the guy who walks his dog past your house at 11:00 every night doesn't create art that rivals that of Vincent Van Gogh?

What I really like about Nick is that he hasn't forgotten what it's like to be slugging it down in the trenches. He hasn't always been a Hollywood screenwriter. It's only recently that he's vaulted to superstardom through an admittedly brilliant piece of work. But a few short months ago he was grinding it out in Vancouver, writing for TV. Which, incidentally, he tells me involves long and arduous 17-hour days. (As a relative pipsqueak in the wide world of digital, print and motion entertainment, I didn't say anything about full-time writing plus blogging. Which, incidentally, involves even longer days, a stupid steep learning curve and an impossibly unbalanced work/life scenario.)

Maybe, after I've sold my first original screenplay to George Clooney, I'll mention it to him.

Wanna Follow Me? I'm Twittering Now.

2009-02-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

It's official. I signed up tonight, mere hours after telling a good friend that I have no use for such a fatuous time-waster.

Now that I've taken the leap, I should have a look. Here, come with me and let's do a bit of research into what people are saying about Twitter:

1. Twitter is emerging as a major force in breaking news. This was confirmed after the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, when people close to the disaster got the word out to the rest of us before the media knew what was happening.

2. Twitter feeds the isolated narcissist in all of us. Well, YEAH. There's really no delicate way to explain Twittering other than having a healthy degree of self-interest. But this whole debate we've been having about The Alarming Degree of Narcissism in Today's Society is silly. Humans are necessarily self-absorbed. Sure, we've got the capacity to reach out to others, to feel compassion and be empathic (or "empathetic" for those folk who probably also say "orientate"). But our first and most basic instinct is to think for – and about – ourselves.

I'm not defending Twittering, nor am I defending selfish behaviour. I'm simply pointing out that humans, as with all members of the animal kingdom, will forever be bound by evolutionary theory. Which, in simple terms, states that he who looks out for his own ass will ensure the passage of his genes into the next generation.

3. Think before you tweet. Each bulletin is limited to 140 words, so choose judiciously the ones you'll use. Twitter is actually pretty helpful in this regard: it forces users to write tight.

4. Businesses should pay attention to Twitter. The same goes for other social media and networking applications (like blogs, Facebook and MySpace, for example). Twitter is outrageously helpful in building and maintaining networks.

5. Twitter is dumb. I couldn't find a link for this, but it's got to be out there somewhere. 'Cause this is exactly what I was thinking up until... well... about an hour ago. Now I can't wait for my first follower. (Psst: it could be YOU!)

Dooce Yourself a Favour: Use Plain Language

2009-02-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

For the record, I have to confess I'm headed back to Dooce. Anyone who can make me laugh like Heather Armstrong deserves to have me as a reader. I like her acerbic style and her excellent imagery. She does everything right. (Who wouldn't picture having a watermelon stuck in their wee-waw?) And after several days – weeks, even – of surfing around on this big old Internet for some good writing (let alone good blogs), I haven't found anything better. Dooce continues to reign. I can learn from her. I will learn from her. I just hope she can scramble together the time to maintain her blog when she adds her second child to the mix.

There's some good stuff out there, don't get me wrong. But there's a bloody lot of crap too. Does this, for instance, really and truly pass as good writing? Let's have a look (link generously withheld):

"Yesterday, I wrote a post, Sink or Swim, where I discussed discarding the safe in search of something better. I made my leap, and have since found myself in the middle of the sea. I first started splashing six months back, determined to ford the flood. Though I see a gilded horizon as inevitable, it is certainly not without its obstacles." (Go ahead and sink, buddy. You'll get it over with faster.)

First of all, I'm not going to say anything about the double spaces in between the sentences. At all. Mostly because the blogging program I use automatically corrects for them, but also because everyone knows that the double space was declared extinct the moment computers with proportional characters replaced typewriters with monospaced characters. So why bring it up? That would just be petty of me.

Second, I'm going to cover my ears and hide my eyes so I can't witness the slow and terrible slide that begins in the second sentence, when this guy finds himself in the "middle of the sea." Because just shortly after he falls off that little verbal cliff we encounter the total travesty of being "determined to ford the flood."

Do I need to say anything about the gilded horizon?

Somebody needs to disable his thesaurus tool. (Pause for yet another Stephen King wisdom, loosely paraphrased: when describing, use the first word that comes into your mind. Don't pick around until you find something with more syllables, because it won't be as good. If Jane runs away from the slobbering beast, then for God's sake write: "Jane ran from the slobbering beast." Don't tell me she galloped. Don't tell me she zoomed. No prancing, loping or scampering. Let her RUN, dammit. Be clear. Be plain. Be real.)

Here's the clincher: the guy writing this fussed-up blog is a professional writer. Offers speech writing, blog writing, web content, e-books and the whole rest of it. (All right, I'm being a bit hard on him. After all, he only threw himself into fording the flood in the middle of the sea six months ago when he doffed his teacher hat and hung out his shingle as a professional writer. But would I hire him to write my blog?)

There's a funny thing about writers. It's a thing that most of us won't easily confess to because – culturally speaking – writers are allowed a certain degree of latitude in their practice. We're the eccentrics, right? The ones who fulfill that romantic Kipling-ish image of drinking ourselves into creative oblivion and staying up all night scribbling impassioned prose that no one else really understands or even reads but considers to be Great Works of Literature worth lining their living room shelves with. It's an awesomely elitist fallacy, and usually I'm pretty content to have it applied to me. But here's the thing that no one's telling you: we writers tend to be fairly myopic about understanding our own talents. Boiled down into fully simple terms: we tend to think we're pretty amazing. From personal experience, whether they're published or not, most writers think their shit is hot. (The way I see it, I'm not 100% certain that the majority of writers think most other writers' shit stinks, but I'll bet they do.)

The nice thing is, most of the general public goes about their day-to-day reading completely oblivious to this oozing infection that rages within the underbelly of the writing world. Most people can sense truly bad writing, but there's only a very fine line between ho-hum writing and pretty good writing, and most people are happy with either.

Which is good for me. Because who's to say my shit doesn't stink?

Ten Guilty Pleasures

2009-02-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

1. Sleeping in...until 8:30. Come to think of it, sleeping a full eight hours with two kids in the house would be a guilty pleasure.

2. A Skor Blizzard from Dairy Queen. On a warm summer evening there's nothing better. Can't you just feel that heavy way the air hangs at 8:00, when the robins are singing and you can hear the baseball game being played a block away?

3. Watching TV during daytime hours. Just something simple, like a house and home kind of show. This, coming from someone who doesn't even subscribe to cable. I guess that would make it an "impossibly guilty pleasure"?

4. Saturday morning. Coffee. Globe and Mail. Hours and hours of pure intellectual ecstasy.

5. Napping. But because I am such an irascible grump after waking from a nap, it's a guilty pleasure that I almost never indulge in (except when pregnant – absolutely nothing can dilute the constantly replenishing bath of happy hormones when I'm with child).

6. A long walk. This may seem rather simplistic and not really a guilty kind of thing at all, but take it from someone who hasn't had time these past two weeks to even go grocery shopping. Finding the time to meander along on a two-hour forest stroll is about as feasible as donning a white bodysuit and folding myself in half backwards like a Chinese acrobat. Not gonna happen.

7. Driving stupid fast on a winding country road. When I periodically stole my mother's Mercedes Benz 450 SEL 6.9 at the age of 15 to see how fast it could go on the quiet streets of our Calgary neighbourhood, it never occurred to me that I might simply kill anything that happened to enter my path. Now that I'm older and have had the great good fortune not to have flattened anything except one very small and surprised red squirrel, I see the folly of my ways. (And since you asked, at a hundred and sixty I ran out of road and had to hit the brakes. All ten times.)

8. Going for a horseback ride. While it's not a particularly guilty pleasure, I'd certainly feel a bit extravagant if I did much of it. Riding is an expensive hobby. I harbour a secret hope that one of my boys will be a rider one day. Thing Two seems to have a real affinity for horses, and I dream of taking lessons together some year not too far from now.

9. I can't decide whether #9 should be getting drunk or hanging out on the porch swing. What the hell. Let's combine them and get drunk on the porch swing.

10. Hmmmmm. I can't really write the tenth guilty pleasure here because I've never done it. And if I did... well, then I'd be guilty, wouldn't I?