There are no little things, or "What I learned without realizing it"

So a couple of my recent blogs contain seeds that were planted in my subconscious a long time ago. Both came at a time when my mind was ripe for new ideas and concepts, when I felt a bit like a little worm on a really big hook and I had no other choice but to pay attention to everything that was going on around me and absorb as much as I could. I was just starting out as a newspaper reporter then, and I was both very aware of the weight of my new responsibility and ignorant of the long term implications of it.

First, the silly part. In my sporadically ongoing science fiction writing exercise, Alice T. Kat, Queen of the Outer Reaches, Alice talks a bit about the concept of Verbal Judo.

I first heard the term sitting in an office at the Canton Township Police Department. That was always one of my favorite parts of the job; who wouldn't like to just sit around and talk with cops?

"Verbal judo?" I asked. "What's that?"

"This idea of letting your words fight for you," the media relations officer said. He was a generally amiable guy, a bit round and cheerful—not what you'd picture when you thought of a police officer. Maybe that's why he was the media relations guy.

"Oh, I see," I said.

Then his whole appearance changed. The smile disappeared and his eyes narrowed. His voice dropped a bit and took on a harder edge.

"You better drop that weapon, son, or I'll knock it out of your hands, shove it up your ass and pull the trigger twice," he growled.

I, of course, didn't have a weapon. But I believed him anyway.

The other lesson is a bit more serious and is evidenced in the way Esmiralda thinks of her role in the world. Her character is still a bit of an experiment—and still very much under development—but it wouldn't surprise me if she took on some of the crankier aspects of my first newspaper boss, W. Edward Wendover.

I remember vividly the way he would berate me—and rightfully so—over some minor typo or misplaced decimal point.

"If they don't trust you on the little things, they won't trust you on the big things," he said emphatically. "Learn to SPELL, godDAMmit!" The paper landed with a heavy 'thwap' on the desk and he stomped off.

In that (and in much more) he was right. It is true in writing fiction, just as it was true in newspaper work—and in life in general. In journalism, your readers will not trust you with facts if they can't trust you with basic grammar. In writing, readers are not going to trust you to craft a good story if you can't put a sentence together—and they're not going to trust you to put a sentence together if you can't put a WORD together the right way.

In life (particularly parenting), well, you can supply your own comparisons:

"How can I trust you to take the car out tonight, son, when you can't even walk down a hallway without colliding with a wall?"

"How can I trust you with $20, when you can't walk past a gumball machine without reaching into your pocket?"

"You want to borrow my chainsaw???!? You can't even cut a piece of chicken!"

The list goes on.

The point is: pay attention to the little things. How you deal with them will, in some way, forecast how you deal with the bigger things. And file away all the lessons you learn, too. You never know when you'll need them. Who knows, maybe something you picked up along the way will come out in a blog about a space-faring cat and her crew. Okay. Probably not in that way, but you get the idea.

Thanks for reading!