Kate Harding writes for the Salon column “Broadsheet”
and for the blog Shapely Prose. Her new book is Lessons from the
Fat-o-Sphere.
Q: What is
your preferred environment for writing?
A: Today is the first day in 2009 it’s been warm
enough for me to write in my preferred environment: on my back porch. I really
need a more comfortable chair out here, if not a proper desk, but I love
sitting outside with my laptop. During the winter (which in Chicago, of course,
is roughly October–May), I usually sit on the living room couch. I have a home
office with a door and a desk and everything, but that’s become a repository
for crap I can’t find space for anywhere else in the apartment, so it’s not the
most welcoming environment. In the living room, I can sit in front of the
fireplace and be slightly less miserable about being stuck inside, at least—even
though I’m probably doing terrible things to my body by writing on the
couch.
Q: What
punctuation mark are you fondest of?
A: Oh, lordy, the em-dash. I am a crazy em-dash
enthusiast—or abuser, depending on how you look at it. (See what I did there?)
When I started using WordPress as my blogging platform, I was bereft because
the only way to type an em-dash in its WYSIWYG editor is to put two hyphens
together, and the only way to do that is to leave spaces around them.
(Otherwise, they’re automatically turned into a single hyphen.) The spaces
drove me nuts at first, but now I’m used to them. I still want any purists
reading to know I don’t actually believe they belong there, though.
I will
occasionally make use of a semicolon or parentheses instead, and I often find
it’s good to remove a few gratuitous em-dashes before publishing, in the manner
of removing a piece of jewelry before one leaves the house. But as someone who
writes in a very conversational style and is prone to interrupting myself, I
make em-dashes do a whole lot of work.
Q: What
punctuation, spelling, grammar, style, or usage error annoys you the most?
A: You know, I do have an answer to this (or a few),
but in recent years, I’ve been actively trying to be less of a jerk about other
people’s writing issues. It finally dawned on me that all of it—grammar,
spelling, punctuation—came so naturally to me, I can’t even take credit for
whatever skills I may have. (And I should note that I just deleted a comment on
my author blog that said something to the effect
of, “For someone who talks so much about writing, your punctuation is terrible!”
I have indeed gone a bit soft since I stopped copy editing for a living, but
also, eff you, Jack. Knowing all the rules means you get to break ’em.) Also,
we all make mistakes. I’m still mortified by the memory of getting back a
paper (about 14 years ago, mind you) with a snotty comment from the prof,
exhorting me to “look up the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect.’” BUT I
DID KNOW THE DIFFERENCE! IT WAS A TYPO! YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME! WAAAAAH!
So,
between my own fallibility as a grammarian and my recognition that I completely
suck at basic skills other people take for granted—notably arithmetic—I finally
decided to quit judging other people’s writing mistakes. Sure, seeing “definately”
still elicits an involuntary cringe, but I am trying to be a bit more zen about
it these days. (“FINITE!” Think “FINITE!”)
Q: If you
weren’t in your current line of work, what would you be doing instead?
A: Probably
editing. I have never been good at a damned thing that didn’t involve words,
and I’ve been quite lousy at a few things that did (e.g., public relations). I
loved substantive editing, but I gave it up because it taxed the same parts of
my brain I needed for my own writing, and I wasn’t yet ready to abandon the
dream of being an author. Now that I am one, it remains to be seen whether I
can continue to be one, let alone make a living at it. There might yet be more
editing in my future—but as long as I can still sit on my porch wearing yoga
pants and play with words all day, that would be just fine. (Please note that I
do recognize how ludicrous it would be to cast editing as a stable and
adequately remunerative alternative to pretty much any other profession. It’s
all relative.)
Q: Why do
you write?
A: Because
I don’t know how to stop.
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