Today’s burning question is, “Kim, are you a writer?”
When I attended my high school class’s 30-year reunion a
couple of years ago, I was surprised by how many times my former classmates
asked if I had become a professional writer. Ummm, no, I hadn’t. Not exactly.
At first, I was really disappointed in myself to answer that
in the negative. I used to love to write creatively – poetry, essays, personal
journals, well researched pieces or off-the-cuff nonsense – but it’s not
something I’ve ever really done professionally more than a small handful of
times. Since entering into the Parenting Zone, I don’t put any time at all into
much that’s creative anymore, due primarily to sheer exhaustion and a slight
match-3 gaming addiction.
I still have the first paycheck I received for a written
piece. The publisher of The Kootenay Advertiser in Cranbrook, BC gave me the opportunity
to do a book review, probably more to get me to go away and stop bothering him
than out of any hope that I might actually put something together. Surprise! He
liked it, it was published, and I could’ve successfully traded effort for money
if I’d taken the check to the bank. Don’t let anyone tell you that I’m not
sentimental.
I later ended up working at that paper for a while as a
proofreader, not a writer, and here’s why:
- I am highly detail-oriented (read that as “nit-picky” if you like), and
- I go to pieces creatively if there is a deadline
Working in the production department of a newspaper turned
out to be my absolute favourite job of all-time, easily beating out “waitress”
(I will literally refill your tea cup with coffee, I’m that bad) and way more fun
even than playing in the mud or climbing scaffolding as a construction project
manager. While with the Advertiser, I occasionally had the opportunity to write
a bit here and there, but it didn’t take me long to discover that the anxiety
unleashed by an impending deadline was death to my creative process. Can’t
draft a piece and vomit at the same time; far too messy and awkward.
When I eventually moved to the Lower Mainland, I chose to
look for work on the production end of the publishing arts – physically putting
the paper together, pre-press – rather than in the Editorial department.
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| Goodness, no! I'm not THAT old! |
Away back then, in the late 1980s and into the 90s,
newspaper publishing was going through a transition from manual to digital
composition. No, I did not have to hand-set reversed lead letters onto trays
(it wasn’t the 1880s) but
typesetters then were the production mystics who magically coded all of their Compugraphic type
and pulled it out of the processor like typographic bunnies popping up from a
hat. All of the columns of editorial type and every bit of an advertisement were
stripped into the layouts by hand and stuck on with soft wax so the strips
could be repositioned. Pictures processed in the darkroom by other wizards were
outlined manually with “hairline” tape; inevitably, the soles of my shoes were
covered in tidbits of tape and waxy paper. Everyone ran around with Xacto
knives in their hands; mine lived in my back pocket and I accidentally washed
it through the laundry countless times. (I still have my own pristine E-gauge
and an 18-inch metal line gauge, and I’ll definitely smack your hands if you touch
them!)
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| I love my line gauge. Don't touch. |
By the time I left that industry in 1997, all of the
composition and production was digital – the darkroom and processors with their
nightmare mixtures of chemicals were gone, the waxers had hit the scrapheap,
and all of our proofs were printed on plain white, 20-lb copy paper to be
scribbled on with whatever pen you had handy because the final version never
appeared on paper till it came off the press.
When I was with the Advertiser, which published once a week,
95% of my time was spent proofreading everything from 2-line classified ads to
double-page feature spreads, plus all of the editorial content that was either
written in house or submitted by the public. The other 5% of my time was taken
up by trying to be helpful on press-day, wherever a spare pair of hands were
needed, till all the layouts were approved for press by the Production Manager.
Someone once posted an error-riddled piece that had
published in a different, local paper up on our lunchroom bulletin board, with
a sweet note like “this won’t happen here with Kim around!”; the publisher gave
me a nice raise that week, too.
My time later at the North Shore News was the most fun
earning a wage that I’ve ever had in my life – I still can’t believe what they
paid me there to do something I enjoyed that much. I worked night-shift so I
rarely had to dress up or see the executives (yay, jeans & T-shirts
forever!). As the shift went on and the building emptied of every other
department except for us Prod Squad heathens, the work flew by and the stereo
just kept getting louder. Because the bulk of our work was labour-intensive but
not massively tasking on the brain, we all sang along with varying degrees of
volume and talent, or we listened to the Canucks hockey games on the radio. Eventually,
we were all trained up on the new digital graphic composition software so we
had to think a little more and sing a little less, but it was still like a
party at your friend’s house every day. Good times!
All of that to say this: nope, not a writer when I worked for the assorted printers and newspapers.
After 10 years, I left the papers behind and went back to school, graduating
from BCIT in 1999 as a newly minted Building Engineering Technologist. That
translated into a job with an engineering company where I was a construction
project manager, working mostly with building envelope retrofits on wood frame
construction. People’s eyes used to glaze over whenever I gave that answer to
the typical “what do you do for a living?” chit-chat question, so I would
usually add this cheeky bit, too: “I wear the white hat and tell the boys what
to do.” (Not entirely true, but pretty accurate, really.)
Part of my job then was to compile and create construction
specifications (written instructions for what product to use to fix which
thing) and issue details & drawings for how the repairs were to be carried
out. I never told anyone how to swing their hammer. I just made sure that the
new work was completed the way it was designed to have been done.
Construction specifications are legal documents. The joke is
that nobody reads the things until they’re walking into court. They’re boring,
they’re 100% technical because that’s just not the place to get creative, and
did I mention that they’re boring?
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| "Leaky Condo" ~ fun, fun, fun. |
I was also heavily involved in issuing building condition
assessment reports. These are also highly technical documents, not wildly
exciting to read but important in their way. If you’re helping condo owners to
understand what’s going on with their homes’ structure, accuracy is everything
and you definitely don’t want to get dramatic (the repair bill will be scary
enough for anyone.)
To summarize: yes, I was a writer in the engineering field,
but I wasn’t producing anything that anyone would actually want to read.
In early June of 2003, I retired from the construction
industry. That date miraculously coincides with the birth of my first child,
and I’ve had the blessing of being an at-home parent ever since. Worse hours,
lousy pay, and my coworkers are beyond strange, but I like the boss so I hang
around.
But…. Maybe now, I’m a writer? You’re reading this mess (and
thanks for that!), and I wrote it, so I guess that’s how this works? I press
the “publish” button and that identifies my role as “author”. I’m still not
entirely sure where I’m going with this whole blog experience but it is fun. It
has prompted some deep thoughts on my part that I wasn’t entirely expecting,
and has launched some interesting discussions & heart-to-hearts with my
significant other, so that’s been worthwhile.
I think that I will keep writing for a while yet. I hope
that you will enjoy reading along, too.
~ 30 ~
