Part Two of the Q and A  with James Chartrand of  Damn Fine Words and Men With Pens                                            

Q:  So, you’re leading a double life under 2 names. Do you feel like a CIA agent? Does it get confusing?

Ha! Never!

See, the truth is that I don’t lead a double-life. I’m one person with one life and use two different names, that’s all. Nothing else changes – no personality shift, no persona to adopt… A rose would still a rose by any other name, and all that clichéness.

The only difficult part is that sometimes I’m having a conversation with a person who isn’t familiar with my dual-name history in business, and it gets a little difficult to explain. It sure is tough to point to my work and say, “I wrote that!”

They look puzzled and answer, “No you didn’t. Some guy named James did…”

Q: If you were starting your business today, do you think you’d need to use a pseudonym?

Need? Of course not. I didn’t need to use a pseudonym back then either. I had a business and it was doing okay – it just wasn’t bringing in the results I wanted, and my pen name changed that.

Actually, if I started a business today, there’s a lot that I’d do differently – I’m older and wiser now, with a lot of smarts to work with! 🙂

Q: Canadians speak differently than Americans, especially Montrealers. How do you compensate for it when dealing with folks over the border?

Good question, that one, and thanks for actually coming up with it! It’s quite true that while I live in a neighboring country to the United States, my culture is very different. It took a good year of adjusting.

For example, there were differences in tone and style of language – where I come from, we speak openly and boldly. In the United States, that was seen as blunt, and sometimes I offended people by my straight talk.

But carefully I figured out what to temper, what to keep and what to adjust so that I was still being true to myself and my culture while dealing happily with others in a manner they preferred.

I haven’t quite been able to drop the ‘eh’, though – nor do I want to. It’s my signature Canuck-speak.

Q:  When one of your kids has a writing assignment and asks for help, do you ever get impatient with her? 

It’s quite funny because my teen never asked me for writing help – I’ll have to ask her why not!

But both my children read and write very well (for their age – the wee one is only 7 so she isn’t up to spelling perspicacious quite yet). Books have always been a large part of our life. Reading is very important to me, and my family just naturally absorbed that comfort with language as well.

Q:  Were you one of those kids in high school who was able to polish off a composition quickly and always get an A?

Yep. Economics and math classes was where all the war stories happened.

If I had to change career now, I’d probably go into sales and marketing or possibly management. I really love the management side of business, and I think that would be my first choice of new careers. I’d certainly have a hell of a resume to present my new employer!

Q:  Do you have a favorite pen?

I do, actually, and you’ll probably laugh: Papermate. The cheapest version out there, the kind of pen that comes in bags of 20 for a few dollars. Here’s a picture:

I really love how these pens write, crazy as it seems. They have a nice medium-sized ball that rolls around well and the ink flows nicely. Nothing scratches on the paper and everything’s smooth as silk.

Q: What do you think of Woody Allen’s movie, ‘Midnight In Paris?’

I’ve honestly never seen it, but I did like Kevin Kline in French Kiss. Does that count?

Q: Why do you think so many great comedians come from Canada?

It’s the beer. It has to be the beer.

Honestly though, I think perhaps the typical Canadian mindset is very relaxed and casual. We’re not uptight, we live and let live, nothing much bothers us, and we like to laugh at ourselves. (There’s certainly enough potential for jokes, considering all the crazy things we like to do!)

Thanks very much for the interview, Fran. The questions were a lot of fun and some surprised me – you asked good ones I don’t hear often!

Read Part One of  the Q and A where James discusses how and why she created Damn Fine Words

Don’t miss signing up for Jame’s awesome writing course, Damn Fine Words. It changed the way I write and how I perceive myself as a writer.

Please note: I’m an affiliate for Damn Fine Words. But even if I wasn’t, I’d be raving about it.

/em