Environment Waikato, the council responsible for environmental issues in my region, are working on a great project that’s making me very happy.

The Hamilton Halo project has been working hard to bring back native New Zealand birds, such as the tui and bellbird, into Hamilton’s suburbs. Apparently these birds, tui especially, used to be common in this city but predators and loss of habitat caused them to vanish.

When I first moved to Wellington in 2006, I lived in an old house atop a hill in Brooklyn that had a kowhai tree outside my bedroom window. Every morning I’d wake up to the distinctive call* of the tui, and it was amazing, as I’d only ever seen them in free-flight aviaries in zoos.

Now though, back in Hamilton, I’m regularly hearing them, and the other day was lucky enough to see a pair in a tree at my house. It gives me a real sense of being ‘home’ to have these unique New Zealand birds around the place, and hearing them never fails to make me smile.

So good on you Hamilton Halo. What a gift you’re giving Hamilton.

*Call from Environment Waikato site, provided by the Department of Conservation.

The writing world, whatever the industry, is a strange place. You’ll always find certain types of people: those who are there but who really shouldn’t be; those who are fabulous at what they do and everyone knows it; those who see themselves as ar-teests (like the ‘ack-tors’ you see in amateur theatre groups); and those who like it fine, but who are happy to muddle along as long as they’re keeping food on the table, and don’t have aspirations of being the next [insert big-name author here].

Passion in one’s work is something I’ve thought about a lot in recent years. Do you have to have it to do a good job? I don’t think so. When I was younger and trying to choose a career path, it was stressful because I didn’t know what I was really passionate about, but felt under pressure not to spend a working life doing something I didn’t leap out of bed each morning with a fire, a joyful desperation, to get on with. With each birthday, that idealism has sapped away and been replaced with a more realistic view.

It is important that you at least like what you do. I like writing a lot. I like editing better (geeky as it is, nothing quite compares to the little rush I get from fixing a misplaced apostrophe, or correcting a clunky sentence). But I’m very happy to be doing writing, and I think that shows in my work. I’ve had office jobs that I really didn’t care about, and that also showed. You can’t love everything you write about, but as long as you at least like the process, that’s plenty. When I can combine something that I am passionate about (dog behaviour, animal welfare) with writing, that rocks, and I smile.

There will be people who think that without that elusive great passion, you have no business to be writing. I disagree. It’s cool if you’re one of those people who can make a career out of their passion, but it’s also good to be someone who can stop when they’re finished, step away from the computer, and go and do something else they love, without making their work the feature of their life. After all, if you want your house painted, you don’t hire Picasso.

I think most people who write have some favourite words. In the interests of putting a little of myself out there (and, let’s face it, getting a new blog post up), these – in no particular order – are 5 words that I don’t necessarily use as much as I should or would like to:

1) Defenestrate – I learned this from Facebook’s Super Poke application a year or two ago, and still haven’t found an opportunity to slip it into conversation. It means ‘to throw out of a window’.

2) Troglodytic – a posh way to say ‘knuckle-dragging’. Ideal for describing some rugby fans and university students.

3) Pus – gross I know, but it’s so descriptive. What else could you possibly call that goo that oozes from an infection? (Note: ‘Ooze’ is also brilliant)

4) Zest – up there with ‘zing’. Both words just sound, and feel, kind of cool.

5) Rudimentary – For some reason, it just amuses me. And I haven’t even seen Galaxy Quest.