Glad Your Doing Well in You're New Job. Really?

If you did not pick up the two spelling mistakes in the headline of this post, I am not at all surprised. Testing on those two words has always been a staple of grammar and usage tests, but lately the mistake has become legion in my reading.

On Facebook and other social media, I see many educated, articulate people writing your when they mean you're. These are folks who actually know the difference between the two words. It leads me to wonder: Do we care about our grammar when writing on social media? If so, will this carelessness lead to other syntax and diction errors? Will the distinction between your and you're blur until either becomes an acceptable substitute for the other? Do I have too much time on my hands to think such thoughts?

One conclusion I can make with confidence is that the sheer volume of online written communication today has led to countless grammatical and, needless to say, informational errors. On guard! 

Knowing When Not to Send That Message

One of the best lessons a developing business writer can learn is not to put some things in writing. Online transactions, social media, and instant messaging have forced us to redefine the concept of privacy. Knowing that we're all over the place as it is, and our stuff might end up where it should not be, we should remember these guidelines:

• Do not inundate readers with forgettable email strings whose shifting meaning with each addition engenders confusion.
• Do not fire off an email to someone who has just upset you, as you'll be sure to deliver a purposeless message.
• Do not write an email if you are wondering whether you should—go with your gut and refrain. 

I hope you're having a nice day ...

This dialogue is a recurring one in my writing workshops:

Learner: Is it OK to open an email by writing, "I hope you're having a nice day" or "I hope all is well"? 

Phil: Do you write those openings? 

Learner: Yeah.

Phil: And no one calls you out on them?

Learner: No.

Phil: Then you answered your question.  

While I find little value in those all-too-often disingenuous statements, many managers expect their staff to open with such niceties. I do understand the importance of setting the right tone, as business depends on cultivating strong relationships. 

Meanwhile, some employees do more damage by following those gracious greetings with abrasive demands or gratuitous accusations, sending misdirected missives, copying staff who have no business receiving the message, and forwarding purposeless email strings leading nowhere. 

My point: Be your word. Don't say you hope someone is having a great day only to ruin it for them.

What Writers Say, Part 25: William Faulkner on What Makes a Good Novelist

In the Spring 1956 Paris Review interview, this is how William Faulkner answered the question, "Is there any possible formula to follow in order to be a good novelist?"

Ninety-nine percent talent ... ninety-nine percent discipline ... ninety-nine percent work. He must never be satisfied with what he does. It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.

I read that provocative interview—perhaps my favorite in the 65-year tradition of the Paris Review's inspirational and instructive "Writers at Work" series—some forty-five years ago when I was a college student and have paraphrased this quote countless times in social conversations and classroom lectures. I appreciate the candidness of Faulkner's observation, especially since I hear so many aspiring writers make excuses for not writing: no time, inadequate location, or insufficient support. Indeed, Faulkner is implying that the only way to write is to write.

What Writers Say, Part 24: Joyce Cary on the Real Stuff of Fiction

Irish novelist Joyce Cary saw plenty to be reaped from considering a character's motivation: "You've got to find out what people believe, what is pushing them on." Cary saw an absolute connection between form and "an ordered attitude towards" the character's principle of unity with the universe, God, and whatever else he or she would call existence.

Sounds deep, I know. In practical terms, this viewpoint can mean  writers must reach the core of characters, their souls, not only their way of interacting with the world but their reason for it.

What Writers Say, Part 23: Francois Mauriac on Using Senses in Writing

"Before beginning a novel I recreate inside myself its places, its milieu, its colors and smells. I revive within myself the atmosphere of my childhood and my youth—I am my characters and their world."

When the author Francois Mauriac made this observation about his penchant for using sense perceptions in his creative work, he reminded all writers of the vitality they bring to their prose when following suit. What we most remember from our favorite books are the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch that pervade the action. A good start toward describing senses is looking for them in the fiction of most respected writers.

What Writers Say, Part 22: Francois Mauriac on the Value of Distance in Time in Writing

French novelist Francois Mauriac was a believer in "a certain distance in time" for a fiction writer. Mauriac said it was absolutely necessary except in journaling, so he opined, "A young author has almost no chance of writing successfully about any other period of life than his childhood or adolescence."

If we take Mauriac's declaration literally, Carson McCullers proves him wrong when she created The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, whose the memorable characters Spiros Antonapoulous, Jake Blount, Biff Brannon, Dr. Benedict Copeland, and John Singer were older than her 23 years. Other examples are abundant.

Nevertheless, Mauriac makes a strong case for distance in time between experience and memory. As time passes, we better understand the setting, people, and situations that influenced their motivations and actions. Writers must write what they know, and they know more with distance in time.