F: Four Letter Word

My husband is a painter. You won't find his masterpieces displayed in a museum but rather on the walls of hundreds of homes and businesses.  He can trim a line between a ceiling and wall with a free hand brush without the use of any painter's tape or a straight edge.  You'll never find a drip on a floor or carpet. He taught all my sons to paint as they grew up. Their summer job was the envy of their friends.  Teenage sons and their father working together can be a volatile mix but most of the time they not only got along and grew closer, they also had fun.  Part of that fun was the little sayings my husband would hand out in half joking and half serious manner when the situation was right.  One of his favorites is now used by my oldest son when he coaches and teaches.

"Work is a four-letter word we use seven days per week."  I don't know who said that first but I'm rather sure my husband didn't come up with it on his own.  That little saying gets thrown around our house a few times per week, usually when someone complains about how much they have to do in so little time.

Most writers don't earn financial security from the profits of their writing.  There is usually some other bill-paying job to put their food on the table and keep the rain off our heads.  Writing time is stolen, borrowed and eked out from sleep time, relaxation time and perhaps even meal time.  Weekends can sometimes provide a chunk of time for writers to apply their talents to their love of the word.  And then we work.

I bet when you read the title of this blog post, you thought it would be about using curse words in your writing.  I'm not getting into to that except to mention the words some of us use when our writing isn't going as we'd like or we have a disappointment in our career.  Instead of using a word like s*#t or h#*l, we should use the four letter word, work.  As in work harder.  Work longer. Work seven days per week.

Any little sayings your family likes to throw around? Do you face disappointments or set backs by working harder?

To Each Our Own

I think no matter how open-minded we all believe we are, it's only human to stereotype.  Often we're not even aware of it.  When we're shopping and see people dressed a certain way, we assume things about them.  When we see a bunch of loud teenagers dressed in black, baggy pants, tattoos and untied, too-large sneakers clopping down the mall concourse, we all veer to the other side of the walkway.  When we see a screaming child and an impatient mother, do we assume neglect or something worse? 

Do we do the same as writers? If we have a gay male character so we make him a fashion expert? If we have a politician, so we always make him corrupt and greedy? Are all the big corporations headed by heartless CEOs who love nothing more than rolling over the little guys? Are the stepmothers always evil? There are many ways to see the world and we each shelter our own prejudices even when we believe we're the most-opened minded people in the world.

I teach teenagers and I learned early in my career to get them know as people and not judge their characters by the costumes they wear. Tattoos are very popular among teenagers now and even if I think most of them are making mistakes by marking their bodies in ways they might come to regret later, that's only my opinion and I don't think less of them because they feel differently.  Any experienced mother will sympathize with the frazzled mother dealing with a child's tantrum in a public place. Most mothers have been there.

Do you see stereotypes in your reading? Have you caught yourself using stereotypes in your own writing?