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The other day my Dad, Dave the brother-in-law, and I made an attempt to change the driver’s side wiper on my car. It doesn’t appear as if it should be that difficult, ideally the wiper simply clicks into place, and if it doesn’t quite fit, there are two adapters. Despite multiple attempts, there was absolutely no clicking. The instructions described how to use the B-adapter and the H-adapter, showing pictures of the B-adapter and a C-adapter, but sadly ignoring a picture of the H-adapter. Was there really an H-adapter, or was it the C-adapter? Or vice versa? (This would be my conclusion, but can you really preclude the possibility that the instructions simply forgot one and the other?) The wiper should fit since it is the brand and size I previously purchased (although I must admit to asking the guys who changed the car’s oil to attach them, and have no idea if they had any difficulty).

The instructions were simply not helpful, even for my Dad and Dave who have changed numerous wipers on numerous vehicles in the course of their lives, and are both intelligent and highly capable people. I am convinced the instructions are meant to be understood only by those who may have an engineering degree in their pocket. The words were recognizably English, but whether they communicate any real information is far less certain. Unfortunately for me, we were not successful in attaching the new wiper which created a rather adventurous drive home at dusk in a downpour with the old, wimpy wiper. If not for the Rain-X, it would have indeed been more than a little exciting. But challenges make us stronger, right?

Don’t let your voice (i.e. message) get lost in the clutter.

A few years ago, I interviewed for a communications position with a nonprofit. And in preparing and researching, I perused the organizations web site, which this position would have control over, and found a lack of cohesiveness, and worse, confusion as to whom the audience should be. They had scientific articles next to articles for the general public. Who was their audience? Were they trying to appeal to the public at large or to scientists? Seemingly both, but it was not apparent. I had an instructor who once said, “Never leave your audience to guess at what is being said.” This cannot be emphasized enough and easily applies to many situations. Who are you trying to talk to? What do you want to convey and how do you best convey it to your audience? In the interview, I mentioned the confusion of audience, and his response was, “The scientists on our Board of Directors like it.” But were they his audience? Maybe.

If you want to reach more than one group, such as the general public and scientists, then make the message or information clear for each group. Have a section for scientific review and a section for everyone else. More than that, does it make sense? Just because all the words can be found in an English dictionary does not make your message comprehensible.

I interviewed for another position which required some testing and found the instructions for one task to be ambiguous at best. And there were no options to ask for clarification. If I couldn’t figure it out, that was my problem. I’m reasonably intelligent and fairly well educated with a degree in English which you could assume would help me understand most instructions, but even after the third reading it was still unclear what they wanted me to do.

The lack of clarity once happened for an assignment in an English class. One of the options was to read a poem backwards, or something to that effect, so I did. It wasn’t what she’d intended, but it worked in my favor and the Professor decided to leave the wording as it was, since it created an interesting outcome for us both.

One of the things I loved most about English classes (which could be said for just about any humanities-type class) is the different things people noticed in stories and books. Definitely worth keeping in mind when writing just about anything: books, articles, instructions, web sites. If you leave room for interpretation, that’s exactly what will happen, and your meaning or intention could disappear. Not a bad thing if it’s a fictional book or story, your audience could and will bring more to the story, but not so great if they are instructions on how to handle a nuclear weapon. That situation might not end so well.

Welcome to my blog.

Have you ever had the problem of ideas for stories rolling around in your head, you sit down to write them out, and they refuse to express themselves? That’s the problem I tend to have. The ideas sound almost brilliant as they form themselves in my mind, I write fabulous lines in my head, or seemingly so, grab paper and pen, or sit at the computer keyboard, and nothing. They are as fleeting as time itself. I suspect, however, this is common amongst writers.

I can’t say writing was my first love. That distinction belongs to art, which had me with my first crayon. With art, I always felt at home. I’d dabbled with writing from time to time, and it has taken time for me to feel the same for writing as with art. Finding the right turn of phrase, playing with language to see what it can do, provides that same feeling of home as art always did. Perhaps it’s the creative process that has me enamored. It’s difficult to say.

A few years ago I worked for a nonprofit, and had the fun task of writing copy for the auction items for the annual fundraising event. This was where those creative juices really started to flow. It came at the moment the Development Director gave me carte blanche, no restrictions. It was incredibly fun to let my imagination go.

I was very fortunate in my job there in that I was also able to edit almost every document we had, and our grant application. I absolutely loved when the Development Director would give me an application and ask me to edit. She’d give me her responses to each question, which were invariably 1500 words long yet needed to be 500 words. It was a fun exercise in learning how to be concise, which can be difficult to do while not changing meaning. It took some serious wordsmithing at times. So much FUN.

A couple of ideas for books have been rolling around in my mind in recent years, and I’ve taken notes of some ideas that caught my fancy at the time. Hopefully a brilliant line or two will make it onto a page. Of course, now that I’m saying it here on this page, it almost requires me to write at least one book. Maybe it’s the push I need.

Honestly, when I sat down to write this blog, I thought it would be about my job hunt, but apparently my fingers had other ideas. However, since I’ve chosen to call this thing mind musings, it could go in many different directions, and there’s something more than a little fabulous about that.

If you like meandering with a purpose, you will hopefully like my writing. I’ve never worked well with outlines, they disrupt the creative process, making me feel like a sputtering car. Life never follows a straight line, at least mine never has, and it very rarely comes in black and white. There are so many colors, shades, and tones to explore it makes most anything far more interesting. Oh, and coloring inside the lines was always difficult too.

mindmusingsnet

Clarity of Voice

First Musings