Pauley’s book uses her own life experience as a frame for glimpses into the lives of the men and women she interviewed for NBC under the sponsorship of AARP. Her subjects are both ordinary and amazing and the book reminds us that little things, done with great passion, are what will keep us vibrant through these bonus decades. The book, like Jane herself, is both comfortable and inspiring. She spoke about all of us as seekers.

I was inspired by how much of what she said reflected my own feelings about change and adulthood. She describes this change as reimagining, eschewing the industrial-sounding reengineering or the potentially daunting reinvention. I know that I want to continually imagine what’s possible for me, what would be fun, what would stretch me. I don’t want to be reinvented. I kind of like who I am, thank you very much.

She talked about her skill in connecting the dots. Aha! Exactly my approach to helping people to see how they can use what they know in different combinations. She believes in stretching your comfort zone, not getting out of it. Exactly. Why create discomfort? Stretch and stretch (I call it expanding) until your comfort zone is enormous. Yes!

I was also so impressed with this group that Maureen Fitzgerald has created. What a lively, friendly, interesting bunch of men and women! I had several delightful conversations with people who were clearly enjoying their lives to the fullest. It’s inspiring to see how many women are already wise and wild and creating wonderful lives. Jane Pauley and Marlo Thomas are reminding us of the possibilities. Just wait until my fifty women add their voices to this growing chorus!

Often, it’s the unexpected learning that has an even greater value, though. In the process, I learned a little about promotions, a fair amount about reviews, and – most surprisingly – the value of using grammar check.

Now, as an English major and long-time writer, I’ve always disdained using the grammar check that’s part of Word. I disable it immediately. I’ve ignored it successfully for decades. Today, it saved me hours of work and I understand its value. But first, a few words about reviews.

Life Blueprints is a compilation of materials that I’ve been using for decades. It’s very dear to my heart, and I know the process works. I was interested in getting the Kindle version of the book out to as many people as possible, so I took advantage of the opportunity to do a three-day free give-away. I timed it right around New Year’s Eve, reasoning that, between parties and parades and football, people might be spending a little time evaluating their lives and they might want a free book to help them do that.

A reasonable number of free books were downloaded. I waited to see what would happen. The first thing that happened was that I got a perfectly dreadful review from someone who had never written a review before (Amazon provides that information). It said that the reviewer couldn’t trust my advice because the book was riddled with typos – she wasn’t able to get past the second page. I was crushed. And mortified. How could this be? I’d used this material for years. It had been edited professionally after being proofread and spell-checked by me.

A few friends also read the book. As it turned out, the reviewer had misidentified the page where the errors were, but errors there were. I needed to fix them. Quickly. I opened my own Kindle version of the book as well as the file I’d uploaded and began to re-proof the document. I knew there was a problem on page 12 and another in the 20’s, but I couldn’t find them.

This is where I swallowed my pride and turned on the grammar check. It found the errors – somehow, “are” instead of “am” had crept in – in seconds. I was hooked. I kept going. Grammar check and I still disagree. I use sentence fragments for emphasis or as a style point. Sometimes, passive is just fine. Sometimes, grammar check is just plain wrong about subject/verb agreement. Still, I found a number of other errors that had gotten past both me and my very talented, very experienced editor. I also found a few suggested wordings that I liked better than my own.

By tomorrow, the revised book will be uploaded and everyone will get a notice that they can download the new version. As I work on my next manuscript, I might even leave the grammar check on. I’ll certainly include it in phase one of the editing process. I’ve learned from the bad review, too. I’ve gone from, “hey, lady – you got all this great advice free and could have maybe been a little nicer,” to thinking that I’m glad to have had the opportunity to correct the situation and produce a version of the book that makes me proud.

So, the learning curve continues – sometimes steep, sometimes smooth, sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating. I’m looking forward to it.

Another English teacher, this time in high school, reinforced my love of reading. Miss Connelly encouraged me to read widely and taught me to begin to judge what I read and stretch. I turned in an extra-credit book report on a trivial book only to have it returned, accompanied by a long discussion on how to tell great literature from trash.

Oh – and then there was Broadway. Does anyone remember Bye Bye Birdie? If you do, you probably didn’t walk around singing this for years:An English Teacher. Of course, I was the English teacher, not the English teacher’s wife:

You were going to college and get ahead
Instead of being a music business bum
You were going to NYU
And become an English teacher
An English teacher, an English teacher.
If only you’d been an English teacher
We’d have a little apartment in Queens
You’d get a summer vacation
And we would know what life means
A man who’s got his masters
Is really someone
How proud I’d be if you had become one
It could have been such a wonderful life
I could have been Mrs. Peterson
Mrs. Albert Peterson,
Mrs. Phi Beta Kappa Peterson,
The English teacher’s wife!
Albert:
Oh Rosie, I told you as soon as I get a few bucks ahead…
Rosie:
You said it before, Albert!
And along came Conrad Birdie…
And it was goodbye Jeffery Josser
Hello William Morris
Goodbye NYU,
Hello all ALMAELOU
‘Cause when you wrote Conrad’s first hit
Agha-bagha-boo
Then I knew that was it
You were through with English
Forever…
An English teacher is really someone
How proud I’d be if you had become one
It could have been such a wonderful life
I could have been Mrs. Peterson
Mrs. Albert Peterson,
Mrs. Phi Beta Kappa Peterson,
The English teacher’s wife!

I did get two Masters at NYU, though. I also discovered exactly how tall high school students are and what a poor disciplinarian I was. I didn’t even last a week before fleeing to the safety of pre-school. Still, my love of reading remains. Those early influences on my writing remains. My respect for teachers gets stronger every day.

She could capture a moment so vividly that you felt like you were there with her, seeing the world through her eyes. She kept diaries through high school and her entries were pointed takes on her world. I wish I still had them. They were thrown away in a move when I was still young. I do still have a few letters that paint a vivid picture of what it was like to be a young wife on the Cornell campus whose husband was overseas fighting in World War II. I can see how she coped with shortages, put together her first apartment, entertained friends and family. Clearly, she was happy and satisfied. The letters are funny and still make me smile as she writes about improvising furniture and stretching ration points.

My mother never had the opportunity to return to her writing. She died when she was thirty, leaving many possibilities open. She created a life she loved – a beautiful home, two children, friends who loved her and spoke of her until the end of their days. She left a small legacy of writings that have so strongly shaped the direction of her children. My brother, who really never knew his mother, is a gifted writer with her sense of irony. I hear her voice as I write. I feel her peering over my shoulder, whispering in my ear. She’s as much a part of everything I write as she would be if she was sitting here now.

Who has shaped you? How did they show up in your life?

Two interviews got cut off somehow, so I’ve reinterviewed Sharon Fender and got a moving new story about a project she’s just completed. She created an annotated bibliography of her late husband’s books that brings each to life and will help future generations understand how incredible Doug was and what he’s contributed to their lives.

I am looking forward to Charlotte finding time for a second conversation so I can share her funny, marvelous experience raising and breeding alpacas. the origins were something like this:
Husband: “Honey, do you love me?”
Charlotte: “Of course I do.”
Husband: “Would you like to see my blood pressure lower?”
Charlotte: “Absolutely”
Husband: “Good. So we’re going to be raising alpacas.”

I can’t wait to get this out into the world! Who knew that even editing could be fun?

1. Yes, it’s true – you get what you pay for – unless you choose wisely.

I used a variety of sources to get the interviews transcribed. Pam Ramsden performed an enormous labor of love as she transcribed about a third of the interviews. She barely accepted one lunch as “payment.” She did an incredible job and has continued to be a motivator and cheerleader.

Jim Meyer transcribed about seven more interviews and did a meticulous job. He even provided notes – including checking the actual date of an event referenced and explaining what an “under five” was in case I didn’t know. (If you have actor friends you will know that this is a role with fewer than five lines.)

The offshore service that had such reasonable rates will remain unmentioned. I had to listen to most of the tapes they did to fix numerous errors. Some deserve to be on somebody’s blooper site. The worst had a group of Girl Scouts visiting the zoo to have breakfast while watching the keepers stab the animals. It’s a pretty big leap from “stab” to “feed.” Oh, well.

2. Thank you, WordPress, for making it somewhat easier, but you really need to know more than I do to set up a beautiful blog. Stay tuned for revisions!

3. Some stories are so good that they deserve to be retold at every opportunity. They shouldn’t slip into every chapter, though, so I’m currently pruning.

4. Hard work, when it’s work you love, is more fun than anything imaginable.