I grew up in the 80’s, watching Christopher Reeves as Superman/Clark Kent. I recently re-watched Superman II (a personal favorite). While I truly enjoyed Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor and Terence Stamp as General Zod, I noticed something that my brain has been chewing on for a couple of days.
Christopher Reeves had to play two opposing personalities in those movies. That got me thinking about my writing and the two personalities I have there.
In my day-to-day, professional life, I am a marine engineering consultant for the US Navy’s DDG construction program. That’s pretty much just a fancy way of saying that I review the designs from the shipbuilders and make sure that the new destroyers are built to specification. Writing is a big part of that job and the style, as you can expect, is very precise and rigid. It’s a “tab A into slot B” style of writing that is strictly technical.
When I’m home (or, given the present circumstances, done for the day), I have to switch personalities to my fiction writer self. I have to shed the rigid technical style and get “loose”. Sometimes that doesn’t happen as completely as I would like, frequently resulting in a proofread a few days later that makes me cringe.
Question of the day:
For all of you out there who have a “day job” writing style that is diametrically opposed to your “author” style… What do you do to get loose?
Matt Hardman 
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