New Feature! Janny's Word Wrestling Makes Its Debut!

Yes, it gives me great--or at least a modicum of--pleasure to introduce something that I hope will be helpful here. While I also know that there are 3,276 "grammar" or "word" sites online, where you can look these things up at your leisure, let's face it. They're not nearly as entertaining as I am. Right?

So without further ado (do you? ah don't), enjoy the first installment of what I hope will be a partial curative for one of my pet peeves...word misuse.  Each week, I plan to take a pair like this and expound (briefly) upon the differences. We'll cover all kinds of things that most writers, Word's Grammar and Spellcheck primary among them, get WRONG with astonishing regularity, causing much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair. This has to stop for two reasons: my dental bill, and what little hair I have left.

SO...here we go.

First batch: discreet versus discrete.

Yes. They are two discrete things, and if you misuse them, you're not being discreet about your treatment of the language.

Here's the scoop from blog.dictionary.com.

"Discreet implies the showing of reserve and prudence in one's behavior or speech. Discrete means something quite different: 'distinct, separate, unrelated.'"

I cannot tell you how seeing this difference ignored in published authors' works (I'm looking at you, Elizabeth Spann Craig) irritates me. And I know there are many other authors out there who've made this mistake over and over and over again. Which says to me two things:

1. You don't know what you don't know.
2. Your editors don't know it, either.

And yes, it does matter. There are something like 400,000 words in the English language; learning the difference between pairs of them that sound and/or look alike but are actually very different in meaning makes you a better communicator. It makes your work say what you intend it to say. And most of all, it keeps people like me from denting walls, the aftereffect of tossing a book against the wall in frustration. (With a Kindle, tossing the "book" against the wall could do even more damage. Making me, your dear reader, even more frustrated. You don't want to go there.)

So remember...be DISCREET about the DISCRETE things you cover in your writing and speech. Or face the flying Kindle. 

You're welcome.

Watch this space for another segment next Friday!

Thoughts?
Janny

"Creative" Isn't a Political Viewpoint. Got It?

A brief word. 

PLEASE, if you run a group, newsletters, or such to which I subscribe and/or belong because of my trade, HEAR THIS and hear it well:

I am a creative person. That being said, however, let's also  talk about what I am NOT: namely, wringing my hands in agony and/or embittered, angry, or terrified  over the direction the country is now taking.

In a word?  Um. No. Much to the contrary, in fact...I'm dancing-in-the-streets DELIGHTED, actually.

"But how can this BE?" you wail. Simple. 

I'm a creative. I'm also a conservative.  And yes, Snowflake, they can go together.

It is extremely prejudicial to assume that because someone is an artist, a writer, or a musician, that he/she is also allied with the mindset of so many of you who consider yourselves cultural "elites."  I'm from one of those "flyover states" you're so fond of either ignoring or disparaging...and I'm proud to be. I hold to traditional values, unapologetic religious faith, and a worldview that  seems to either scare or repulse many of you. I'm also an award-winning fiction writer who's helped countless people realize their writing dreams, a singer and performer who loves to be onstage, and a proud parent of a young lady who is truly gifted in ceramics. Among other things. 

If you hate the first part of my description but love the second, and wonder how those two can coexist...? This is just a guess, but...maybe because ARTISTIC ABILITY is a totally different sphere than POLITICS?

I know. It's a wild and crazy idea. But...imagine for a second...if it's TRUE. (Spoiler alert: it is.) Pretty darned progressive notion, isn't it?

This isn't to say that both of these things aren't part of me. Of course they are. The WHOLE is what I am. But one does not preclude, cancel out, or negate the other. I'm not "stupid" or "uncreative" by being a conservative, and YOU're not "wise" and "enlightened" by NOT sharing my views. We just differ. Period.

This should not be difficult to understand.

Intelligent people know what you DO doesn't constitute the sum total of  who you ARE; it seems to me that creative people should be able to separate, and appreciate, the dichotomy of those aspects better than almost anyone else. How many of us wait tables before that "big break"? Are we career food service people? Nope. Had we better make sure we're GOOD food service people while we ARE doing it? Well, yeah, unless we want to be living examples of "starving artists." 

Just as we're not deemed  "less artistic" simply because part of us is engaged in keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table,  I should not be considered "less creative" or "less intelligent" for holding a worldview that's different from what you might expect. I'm being truly, authentically me. Which is what creativity also hinges on, if I'm not mistaken. 

Creative people don't like being pigeonholed, no matter how comfortable and reassuring you may  find the particular hole in which you'd like to think you can stuff me. :- ) Stop trying. Because, I promise you...it ain't gonna work.

More to the point, however, it's just not right.

So if I'm supposed to "live and let live," then I should be treated with the same courtesy. Yes, even if I'm (gasp!) conservative. 

Go on. Try it. It'll be a good creative exercise for you. And I promise, it won't hurt a bit. 

Thoughts?

Janny

What He Said.

Why I am an entrepreneur at heart:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/

(Which is good, considering the lack of people pounding down my door to hire me!)

Time to up the income scale...
Janny

Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give a Sh*t

You know, sometimes you dodge a bullet.

A potential client on Upwork had a business book he wanted editing on...about how to keep Millennials happy in your workplace.

You know. How to keep a raft of recent college graduates endlessly entertained, affirmed, praised, and rewarded for basically not PRODUCING anything yet...but they will. Oh, boy! They will! Just ask them about what they're gonna do for you...

...as long as you can keep them engaged with your enterprise for long enough.

While I understand that this, unfortunately, IS the work force that many companies are facing--I found myself reading this guy's tips on how to keep these kids on board, and thinking, "Why in the world do you want to work so hard KEEPING these prima donnas? That's just enabling a delusion at your company's expense."

And that's what it is, ladies and gentlemen. 
In the mental-health and recovery professions, we call aiding and abetting someone in their illness "enabling" them. You clean up the drunk's messes, you call and make excuses for the drug-addict kid, you coddle and protect and shield, because obviously, they're only screwing up their lives and the lives of everyone around them because they were Underloved In Some Important Way and We Have To Make Up To Them For It.

Hogwash.

Mental illness is an illness. It needs cauterizing and treatment, not coddling. Yes, it hurts. Lots of things do. But the light at the end of the tunnel is worth going through the healing process to get to.
Drug and alcohol abuse is an illness, but it's also a behavioral DECISION. (At some point or other, you take that first drink or you smoke that first weed. Yes, YOU do it. No one forces you to.) And it needs correction, not cooperation. Accountability, not accommodation. 

Same goes for the mental illness rampant in the Millennial generation's members who believe the world owes them a living, full-blown, luxurious, and debt-free, FROM DAY ONE.
And yes, they'd like it on a scale better than Mom and Dad's, too, thanks. 
Um. No.

If you're sitting behind your desk at the factory wondering how you're going to keep kids like THIS employed at your firm...stop wasting your time and energy.
Because it IS a waste. And worse, it's contributing to the perpetuation of a mental illness.
It's called being delusional.
And the sooner you can STOP catering to it, the sooner it'll get cured.

But if you maintain that you somehow have to change the way YOU do business so that these kids will be motivated to stick around?
Um. No.
Trust me. They won't. The moment someone dares to shatter their "safe place" or fails to reward their special uniquenesses, they'll walk anyway.

Which is where the title of this post comes from. Because, frankly, you shouldn't care if they do. There are plenty of other able and willing hands out there to take their places.

Don't kowtow, wheedle, or try to appease these spoiled specimens. Set them free. You'll be doing them a service.
You'll be enabling them to discover that $7 an hour jobs are plentiful out there for people with no other options, as well as realizing that eating and indoor living cost money...money OTHER people are willing to sacrifice and work hard to get.

Between those two insights, they might come to their senses and understand, finally, that it's not up to The World to cater to THEM...but the other way around.
And THEN, they might be staff members worth keeping. Because they'll actually understand that they need to show up, and be on time, and keep their mouths shut, and learn a few things, BEFORE they'll get that corner office.

Then, you'll have great people to work with.
But until then, please, stop bending over and inviting these special little snowflakes to kick you again.
It's not doing any of us ANY favors.
And that behavior certainly doesn't deserve an owner's manual to encourage ANYONE to perpetuate it.

Thoughts?
Janny

Does Anybody Actually Work Anymore?

OK, you may think I'm being a little facetious here...
But as a freelancer, I notice things like big influxes of job listings, or big SLOWDOWNS in activity. And patterns in same.

Awhile back, I posted on social media about how things seemed to "shut down" about noon on Thursdays. From a fairly brisk pace beforehand, it seemed like clients were getting ready to power down for the weekend...shall we say...rather early. I'd see regular traffic, and then it would get sparser and sparser, bit by bit, as Thursday afternoon edged toward Thursday evening.

NOW, however, the ebb is starting on WEDNESDAYS.

And this week...I'm starting to wonder if anyone's working at all in any offices, anywhere, during the month of August. Because things have gone from fairly respectable streaming to a trickle to, now, a DRIP.

(This is not a comment on the quality...merely the quantity. :-) )

So there must be a secret I don't know about as to how people are paying their bills when they increasingly DON'T DO A LICK OF WORK PAST LUNCHTIME ON TUESDAY.

Um...
Could someone fill me in, please?

I need a job that pays like that!

Thoughts...?
Janny