Knowing Differences

One of my two pens is out of ink, and I've been looking all over for my other pen. I was writing about the differences between people, places, and things with the same name. We humans are remarkable that we can distinguish among them.

I would have started with people. My girlfriend's name is Onyx, and Onyx is the only Onyx I have ever met, so I can't compare her to another Onyx. I could compare her to my last girlfriend, but that's not what I'm after here. I have way too many friends named John. There's John Amato, John Devers, John Edison, John Figueroa, John Hines, John Rodriguez, and John Vanucci. I wouldn't know which two to compare, and if I did, the other five would be offended that I didn't compare them. Come to think of it, the two I'd compare might be pretty upset too. I know only two Steves, Steve Jennings and Steve Wolfson, but their likenesses are far more interesting than their differences. Maybe I'll write about those similarities some other time. And I know two Kims, Kim O'Dell, a man, and Kim Savage, a woman. I'm not in an emotional or intellectual (or political, come to think of it) place where I can describe the differences between a man and a woman except for the obvious biological aspects.

I wanted to compare two Blue Lagoons, the one in Comino, Malta and the one in Grindavik, Iceland. They are entirely different aquatic experiences. And the differences between Broadway in Nashville and Broadway in New York, which are quite different in magnitude and culture. I cannot say much about differences between Georgia in the United States and Georgia in Europe, because I have been to the state but not the country.  I could say a thing or two about Hollywood in California and Hollywood in Florida, but why bother? However, I would enjoy writing about the differences between Neptune, New Jersey and the planet Neptune, even though I have not been to the planet, but there's a story there, only I can't find the other pen. 

As for differences in similarly named things, I am moving too far to the obvious. I could write about the differences between the bow to be tied and the bow of a ship, or the bat to be swung and the bat that flies, or the trunk that stores clothes or the trunk of an elephant, but I'm not writing to first graders. On the other hand, writing about the differences between the cell that a prisoner lives in and the cell that's the smallest unit of an organism would be interesting, I suppose.

Then you have confused nomenclature. Like Madison the person and Madison, Wisconsin, the place.  Or Aurora the person and aurora the thing. Take Wembley, England, the place, and Wembley ice cream, the thing. How can one keep track?

Back to my two pens. I know one is a Cross and one is Parker, but I don't know which one is out of ink and which one is missing because I threw out the dried up one and the trash collectors already picked it up. Maybe when I finally find the missing one, I'll see that I mistakenly threw out the one with ink. At that point, what difference would it make which is a Cross and which a Parker? And anyway, their names are different. So this is all very much beside the point.

I Know Why

I have bought books in City Lights in San Francisco, Foyle's in London, Moe's in Berkeley, Shakespeare and Company in Paris, and Strand in New York, but I cannot recall most of what I have read. I have seen art in the National in Beijing, the Prado in Madrid, the Metropolitan in New York, the Louvre in Paris, and the Vatican in Rome, yet I remain so uneducated about art. I have heard jazz shows in A-Trane in Berlin, Bohemia in Granada, Jazzhus Montmarte in Copenhagen, Stampen in Stockholm, and Yoshi's in Oakland, but I cannot tell you who performed there. I have walked the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon, Cadillac Mountain Trail in Acadia, Highline Trail in Glacier, Mist Trail in Yosemite, Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier, and if you put me on one of these trails, I would not be able to distinguish it from the others. And you, I have met you in so many places over so many years and talked with you about so many things, and here I am unable to tell you where, when, and what. But I can tell you why. May I see you tomorrow to tell you?

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 6: Attitude

This final segment on writing confidence at work focuses on attitude. And why not? Confidence is an attitude, or an awareness, about one's abilities to perform successfully. When we approach any task without that requisite confidence to perform it well, it shows to everyone in our presence. Embarrassment is not even half of it. No one wants to appear incompetent, and no one wants to mess up a job because of their self-perceived shortcomings. Pretty unnerving.

Now it's one thing to say, "I write well" and another thing to write well. But experience tells me that for a person of adequate self-awareness, saying it is a fine first step being it. This means that someone committing to that declaration will do everything they can to live up to that expectation. That's attitude with a capital A. 

To close this series, I'll list five ways to build confidence:

1. Learn from the masters. Study the sentences of authors you respect. For example, the highly regarded Nobel Prize laureate T. S. Eliot wrote this sentence in a 1929 essay on Dante in his Selected Essays: "For the science or art of writing verse, one has learned from Inferno that the greatest poetry can be written with the greatest economy of words, and with the greatest austerity in use of metaphor, simile, verbal beauty, and elegance." We need to be forgiving of 96-year-old sentences, as writing style changes with the times just as fashion does. While today most of us would write just the art of writing and drop science, by this point in the essay, Eliot has implied how he distinguishes between science and art. As for those final four descriptors, I immediately understand metaphor, simile, and elegance but not verbal beauty, which seems like a redundant rendering of elegance. Then I think of whether an expression can be verbally beautiful and not elegant and vice-versa. Regardless of how I, the reader, resolve this matter, the key point is that I am thinking like a writer who is trying to apply such phrasings to my own compositions as much as I am a reader who is simply trying to be educated or entertained.  
2. Practice. Good writers are always writing or thinking of writing. Bring a notebook with you wherever you go. You'll never know when a good idea will pop into your head, so write them in your notebook as soon as they do and follow up on those notes when back at your writing spot.
3. Put things in perspective. Guess what? You'll mess up from time to time, no matter how good a writer you become. So what? You haven't died. Far worse things can happen. Just work through it. 
4. Know your developmental areas. Say your narrative flow is terrific but grammar knowledge is limited. Do something about it. Enough online resources exist that can provide the necessary information to get you up to speed. 
5. Build on your strengths. Read number 4 above and put two tips into practice. First, if your narrative flow is strong but your grammar weak, then use that strength to sharpen the weakness. You can do that, for instance, by putting some of your best sentences through a grammar-check tool to see if your sentence is more effective than the suggested one. If you write a good sentence, chances are yours is better. Second, work on your narrative flow, your strength. All skills need constant updating and refining. This task should be easy because you already feel you have arrived in this department. Keep reading eclectically and incorporating. 

By exuding confidence as a writer at work, you will have greater authority and respect. Confidence is worth cultivating.

Writing Confidence at Work, Part 5: Standards

Think about what we call standards of good writing. What does that even mean? Does it mean write like me, your manager? Write like the company-provided templates? Write like the standard that we have created for you? 

Whatever it is, do not automatically consider it a standard of good writing. Writing style is arbitrary. I'd bet that you and I would disagree about what defines good writing style. Does James Baldwin have good writing style? Does Joan Didion? Lydia Davis? I would say yes. If you would say no to any of these three writers, then we would disagree about what constitutes good writing style. Yet these three writers have quite different approaches to style. 

Then how do we determine whose judgment of good writing style matters? By how much we respect that person's writing and that person's opinion. If we know they have set a standard that we can aspire to, then their opinion matters to us, for their influences have shaped their style. Those people whose writing style we respect most likely read a lot and learn from what they read. For this reason, I cannot stress enough the value of reading eclectically, something I have noted repeatedly on this blog. Through reading a broad range of writing styles, we discover our own standards and replicate them in our own writing assignments.

But remember: Standards are arbitrary, though excellent writers establish them, and those are the writers whose lead we should follow.