Most guides to writing better blog posts suggest actions that boil down to one intent - making the content more relevant and easier to digest for the reader.

I’m not following most of those tips.  I don’t tend to add in links or suggest guidelines or other helpful tasks.  I do try to organize the subject matter logically and check for spelling and grammar, but there’s much more that I could be doing.

Instead I’m writing primarily in a narrative and self-reflective style.    And I have to admit that I do it because it’s easier to write this way.  Making what I’m learning and thinking about more accessible and reader-centric takes an additional level of thought and work.  Right now I’m struggling enough to think about thinking and put my thoughts in order that taking the next step seems more of a running leap than a simple hop. 

One of the most important lessons I learned from creating art was to just start doing.  I can dream about it and imagine what I want, but unless I start I will never reach my goal, no matter how inadequate my current efforts seem.  This isn’t a new discovery.  Each person learns it in their own time.  And now I’m applying it to this endeavor.

Someday I’d like to be able to make what I post more helpful to others without freezing during the writing, and thinking, process.  But I’m not there yet.  I need to write this way first.  I can move to another level of thought later.

On the other hand, I could frame the question of writing style very differently.  For example, I could have said that I am emulating a travel journal.  And in that case I would have a whole different approach to refine. 

On the other foot, I could say I am following an alternate set of advice to distinguish my blog by using a different style than the recommended one.  Although that would be stretching the truth way too thin.  Unless I took the thought as a starting point and developed an approach around it.

And now I belive I am rambling.  And avoiding that error is definitely a guideline that I want to follow, so this post is over.

Thinking feels good.

I received a presentation from a supplier via email that was related to a product I am responsible for.  I scanned it, confirmed there was nothing directly relevant to our product, and went to close the document.  Then I stopped.  I remembered my goal about thinking better.  And I started over.

I reread the presentation, asking myself about implications of the information.  I double-checked the formulas of our current products to ensure that I wasn’t just assuming that the information did not have a direct affect.  I examined the data charts, seeing how properties changed and wondered if these would affect our competitor’s products and how that could work for or against us.  I considered their research methodology and what I would have thought of myself and what was more novel to me in my formulation research, but that maybe I could use.

When I was done my understanding was greater and I had another set of questions.  These questions are more related to action items that could be of benefit to our product line.  In addition to feeling a deeper sense of satisfaction by doing the work I also had an idea that I wouldn’t have had before.

Thinking takes time.

My first skim of the presentation took only 10 minutes.  It took the rest of an hour for me to work through it again while questioning.  This isn’t always going to be possible.

When I’m more practiced at the thought process, then I expect it will take less time.  I have always thought about my own data and projects, but often there’s a significant amount of work that falls in between periods of thinking.  If I evaluate other sources of information more closely, I’ll be going through that process more often and it should become easier and quicker for me to do so.

I need to select which sources and ideas I spend the additional time on.  Most of the time it needs to be an investment, something that will produce a return in my primary areas of responsibility.  Although occasionally I’ll just need to stretch a little by doing something different, prioritizing is still worth keeping in mind.

 ”Lift the bottom end.”

I make adjustments.  “Okay, keep moving.”

“Aaaaargh.”

This was a snippet of conversation from the efforts of my husband and myself to struggle a wood futon down our steps.  The aargh was when part of the weight came down on his foot because I lifted up the wrong “bottom end.”

Somehow what I hear in a very simple sentence is not always what he meant to say.  And sometimes he looks at me and wonders outloud how I could possibly have interpreted his words to mean anything but what he had originally intended.  And I generally believe my interpretation made just as much sense as his did.

We think differently. 

Yet, on our first date, ten years ago today, we each ordered our favorite sandwich at a local restaurant with twenty-five different creative choices.  It was the same sandwich. 

My husband is always my most immediate reminder that not everyone thinks the way I do and that thinking differently isn’t just a matter of processing information in a different order but can be a completely different view of the world.  The first thing noticed in a scene differs.  The item remembered as “obvious” differs.  The words used to express the same idea differ.  And often in unexpected ways.

For the sake of loving relationships with similarities and differences and the frequent challenging of expectations and assumptions - Happy Valentine’s Day.

I had to wonder if I have a non-story or just a different story after reading this month’s Scientiae carnival, a collection of stories by and about women in science and technology.  Many of them focused on the differentness and difficulties about being a woman and pursuing careers in these fields, a situation that sadly still exists.

But that is not my experience.

My father encouraged me to pursue science or engineering as a career.  I told him in high school I was thinking about being a writer and majoring in English.  He pointed out how much I enjoyed my science courses and suggested that I start there and see what happened.

My male graduate advisor repeatedly tried to convince me to go after my Ph.D. in materials science.  I went to graduate school specifically to get only my M.S. to help me prepare for a research-oriented position in industry, which I did achieve. 

My first boss sent out an email the first week I was there, the first female chemist in an office of seven, reminding everyone that it was now a mixed environment.  One of the other chemists had made an off-hand remark in an email, something about grabbing a problem by its balls, if I remember correctly.

My words have been listened to in a variety of situations without being repeated or brushed aside by the men.  I’ve been invited to pick-up basketball games and out to drink when some of the chemists and plant supervisors got together.  No one has ever expected, or even lingered hopefully, to see if I’ll set up lunch or make coffee.

The closest I ever came to feeling “female” in a “male” environment was when one of the managers took a small group of us to a restaurant in Miami during a convention.  His choice had bikini-clad servers and dancers.  But I think that had less to do with him being unconsciously sexist and more to do with him being French…  One of the other guys did check to see if I was uncomfortable.

It is certainly possible that I’m being naive and a bit clueless.  For example, my husband says that when we go to the hardware store so I can get something for a household repair (my job, not his) that the clerks almost always look at him and try to talk to him.  He says he has to fade into the background and gesture with his eyes to ensure they talk to me.  All I remember is that I just go up, ask my question, fully expect them to answer appropriately, and they do.  So, maybe I’m just not noticing the gender issues.

I’m not completely oblivious.  I see the difference in the world between an aggressive man being considered strong and an aggressive woman being a considered a bitch, for example.  But I don’t recall my gender ever being an issue in my professional life as an engineer and chemist. 

I read Scientiae and a number of the contributor’s blogs on a regular basis because they have great stories, but also so I’ll remember what can and does happen out there.  I  want to keep my eyes open to notice if gender issues are influencing a situation.  It could happen to me or someone around me next.  Years of women and men noticing and talking about such things that made it possible for me to live my experience.  One where I don’t really have anything to say about being a female engineer or chemist.  Mostly I can only talk about being an engineer or chemist, without that modifier.

Do you think about the road or the destination when you travel?

When I drive in the United States I see signage that emphasizes the road or highway that I am on.  There are many street names and only occasional signs noting that this town is this far or that town is that far.

But when I drove in the Netherlands and Belgium during a visit in 2006 I saw signage that emphasized the many different places I could go from where I was.  The street I was on or turning onto was rarely mentioned. 

I spent most of the first two days of my trip getting lost.

Even though I had a map I had to shift the way that I perceived the map.  I learned to consider the places the roads I wanted were headed towards and the shapes of the route on the landscape without being too concerned over the name of an individual road.

The last three days of the week-long trip I didn’t get lost at all.

I remembered this process of shifting my perception while writing my previous post.  This one was gradual instead of a jump.  Even after I realized that my thinking and the environment were diverging and identified the difference, it still took time to effectively adjust my thinking.

As a side note, when I was editing this entry something about it struck me as familiar.  After a moment, I realized that this story was also an example that tied into a blog entry by Liz Strauss about changing your mind.  I had tried unsuccessfully to blog a response to her post a few weeks ago and now I wonder if it stuck in my head and influenced my decision to write this entry.