Paula Houseman's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

Both my parents were immigrants. It was pretty much all they had in common—they lived together, but were poles apart. She was a staid walking cliché who struggled to live the Australian way; he thought he was living it because he could fart the national anthem. Dad, the patriot.

She didn’t swear; he didn’t stop. She sweated over what the ‘neighbours’ would think; he didn’t give a crap. And the list went on …

On the side of nurture in the nurture vs nature debate, an environment of extremes was the standard for me. On the side of nature was the weird lens through which I unconsciously saw life. My imagination micromanaged me—it parodied perceptions. Life was like an animated cartoon. Life was like South Park on an endless loop.

Seeing situations and people through a distorted lens helped me find the comedy in the tragedy. It was a survival mechanism. Not so much where school lunches were concerned, though. There was no comedy to be found in my packed lunch.

While my fellow students ate their Vegemite or soggy tomato sandwiches or tuck shop sausage rolls and cream buns at lunchtime, eating my lunch became a covert op. My immigrant lunchbox was spring-loaded with an embarrassing assortment: leftover lamb koftas, dolmades, cevapcici sausage, falafel, pita, and baklava.

So much for fitting into the Aussie way of life. Worse: try hiding something on campus, and everyone notices.

My peers mocked me because ethnic fare was uncool in the days before Australia became a multicultural nation, and because adolescents need someone to make fun of. Being that someone was no fun.

Ergo, I worked hard at unweirding myself until, come early adulthood, a Vegemite-sandwich mode of existence had become my norm. But being not-me was also no fun. It was exhausting and it was boring.

Then, fate intervened.

A Taste for the Twisted

My latent twisty filters drew me to people and situations I didn’t even have to imagine.

Amongst them was a woman who, mid-business negotiations, announced she had two ‘vageenas’. And a sixty-something PR guy whose letterhead logo was a pic of himself in the naked, reclining pose of Michelangelo’s Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling (modified to have his hand cupping his wiener and nuts—universal ‘fare’).

Freeeeeeaks! you think? But says who? Our judgy and too-ready-to-moralise mindsets that want to cut off any deviances—which, hello, we all have—and turn us into clichés?

A clichéd existence is not good for the soul, nor is a sanctimonious one.

The Right, Rite, Write of Weird Characters

The refracted lens that put a strange spin on how I viewed things is now my lifeblood. My internal landscape is Monty Pythonesque and my book characters are testament to that.

Having a satirical POV, though, is not about standing on the sidelines like an adolescent and taking the piss out of others because their differences seem threatening.

For me, it’s about highlighting the insanity of aspiring to be quirk-free and to be ‘normal’—the ridiculousness of thinking inside the box (and marginalising those who have more than one).

Well, I say, here’s to that woman who celebrated her two twats! It might have been too much information to share with a stranger, but she was proud of her ‘abnormality’. It was normal for her. And cheers to the brazen PR guy! Although, if you’d Photoshopped the droopy little moobs and cherry-red nipples, mate, it could have been better for business. Or maybe not …

What quirks do you have that you might be ashamed of, but that could make you interesting?

And How—The Bigger the Better!

In the modern I‑♥‑quantity mindset, size matters.

Yessiree, Bob!

Gimme an L!
Gimme an O!
Gimme a T!
Gimme an S!
Gimme LOTS LOTS LOTS!

In the Digital Age, the implication is that I must be okay if I have lots of whatever; the subliminal message—my worth depends on it.

Social Net Worth

Lots of Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, Twitter followers (even if you have to buy them), lots of tweets and likes and shares. And then there’s Klout.

Klout is about your clout. It’s a site that helps you ‘measure your online impact’. The bigger your Klout score, the more influential you are. According to Klout, anyway. Note: It takes little for a Klout score to slip, but it takes lots to boost it. This entails a lot of hard work to keep up with the Joneses … and Trumps and Biebers and Gagas.

Social media algorithms are voracious, and surpassing others is the next big thing (although, where weight is concerned, big is not really phat. So say the image-makers).

All of this points to going to great lengths to become widespread. But there’s not much depth there. There’s nothing said about depth. And yet …

Depth is where you’ll find your best work in progress: You.

In the depths is where you’ll find your real worth. From there, you’ll come back up and do your best work in progress. The kind that reflects the measure of the person you’re becoming, and makes you bigger and better—not necessarily bigger and better than others, but than the self you were. Naturally. It’s this kind of work that needs to become widespread to help others find their own best WIP-self.

Sharing is Caring

We learned it when we were little, but it’s a tad uglified in this information age. Sharing has become inorganic.

I myself am guilty of some opportunistic sharing, and I do like to see my follower numbers growing! It’s okay, I’m unashamedly human. And realistic. As an author, I need to grow my brand, and growth and exposure lead to book sales. As a human, I will occasionally lapse into the numbers game. But my brand growth will never be at the expense of quality writing. Ever.

Once you’ve started living and writing the deep life, there’s no going back to a largely quantitative existence with its shallow stories and soulless characters.

So, yeah, size does matter: Depth matters.

*Check out my blogs at https://www.paulahouseman.com/blog/