Five things I am thankful for this year:
- The freedom and ability to be who I want to be
- The adult relationship I finally have with my parents and siblings
- K who is lots of fun and the sweetest man I’ve ever met
- Friends at work (ZingIT rocks!)
- My happy fulfilling life

I love the smell of snow in the air. It hits when I open the door. Then just as quickly as it comes, it dissipates. Walking outside there is an undercurrent scent of dried leaves and rain. Then the heat starts up in the car and the smell of it reminds me again of winters past. The anticipation of the season exhilarates me to the point that its eventual arrival causes much glee. Soon will be First Snow!

NaNoWriMo starts today! Here I am in front of a text editor, fingertips hovering over the keys.

I’ve always been a private person. The apt listener, the last person to volunteer information about herself at a party, who will offer an opinion only if asked. Instead of talking, I write. There are notebooks tucked away in nooks around the house, ensuring that should a thought come up that needs recording, there is always one within reach. A dozen filled ones hide in plain sight in a decorative box on the living room floor. My thoughts have always been my own refuge. This blog itself is a challenge to maintain. Putting my words out there for others to discover is frightening.

And now, a novel? A first draft of a novel. Novels have characters, settings and plot. But to find its voice, for a novel to be written, it needs a listener. Francine Prose explains that one of the obstacles of writing involves understanding narration.

“This hurdle disguises itself as the question of voice and who is telling the story (should the narrator be first or third person, close or omniscient?) when in fact the truly problematic question is: Who is listening? What occasion this is story being told, and why?”

For someone who is unaccustomed to being a talker, suffice to say, this project is more terrifying than it looks. Even if no one ever reads it, the whole exercise will be a test. Are my thoughts, the trove of wonders and experiences I’ve cherished since I became conscious of my own independence, worth consuming? Would they make sense if I attempt to put them down in a communicable format? Would they as valuable to others as they are to me? Does that matter?

In addition to writing for an audience, I am also learning to speak to an audience — my computer. To protect my hands from the 50,000-word mountain ahead, I’m using my speech recognition software to do the grunt work. Writing something so personal for others is awkward enough. Hearing it out loud feels silly.

Now that I’ve gotten that bit of anxiety out of the way, it’s time to suit up and get my game on. Never let it be said that I backed down from an opportunity to improve myself.

I’ve realized that when it comes to communicating, I have two distinct personas.

Persona #1: Used in public, at work, with friends, in meetings
I am articulate, sensitive, diplomatic. Listening to people of different cultures speak, I was amused by how much Americans insisted on using neutral language. I’ve since learned to say “I would be really great if…” instead of “do it” and “it’s not what I prefer” instead of “I don’t like it”. The de facto style for communicating ideas was through gentle delivery. My grandfather taught me this skill albeit through unconventional means (that will not be discussed at this time; it’s a very long story).

Persona #2: Used when talking to immediate family and close friends
I am direct, efficient, rational and I don’t mince words. When my friends ask for my input, I will give them a straight answer. They value the clarity and seriousness with which I discuss their problems. This trait I inherited from my father. Our conversations have always been objective, effectively detaching emotions from the topics at hand (yes, peculiar, but again another long story). It should be no surprise that I maxed out the T on the Myers-Briggs scale (zero in F, but don’t hate!). My secret is that I derive delicious pleasure in finding just the precise word to convey my meaning.

One of the challenges I must be more conscious of is inadvertently using the private tell-em-like-it-is persona in a public setting.

When I’m confronted with a problem, I want to fix it, and the synapses fire in my brain, energizing the calculating, logical thinker in me. Then as I begin to speak, the diplomatic filter comes on before the words come out of my mouth. Sometimes though, I forget myself. When that happens, I can usually tell by the shocked expression on the listener’s face. A friend who is now used to the straight-talker once said that when he first heard me speak frankly, it sounded “hostile.” I always mean well when I share my thoughts, though the choice of words, or rather the lack of embellishment of those words has the tendency to color the entire message in aggressiveness.

Earlier tonight, I was discussing a friend’s business proposal and said one innocuous (to me at the time) statement that offended him. I said that I “didn’t care for” half the company goals he was proposing. It was true. I really did not care for them, and since he was proposing them to me, they would’ve made terrible incentives. In hindsight, I could have phrased it better. Ah well.

“… is that you’re no longer able to sustain any kind of ambiguity.”
- Josh R., over brunch, looking up whatever happened to his favorite brand of lime-flavored rum