Surprisingly, this post applies to my male readers too – and to people that don’t consider themselves to be pretty (you really are, like it or not).

Writers, freelancers, work from homers – whoever you may be. At some point in your illustrious career, some lovely person has said this to you, “That’s so cool that you work from home! You can just wear your pajamas all day and no one will care or see you!”

Uh huh. It’s true. We could do that. And some days, I’m sure we all do.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and proclaim, superficiality be damned, that what we wear, how we costume ourselves, really does matter. It affects what we think about ourselves, how we act, how we talk, what we say, what actions we take.

When I dress in sweats and running shoes, I’m casual, I slump – sometimes when I look from the work I’m doing on my computer down to my clothes and back up again, it occurs to me that I’m maybe I’m only ‘playing’ writer.

So, I don’t do that anymore. Because when I wear jeans that fit in all the right places, my good bra that erases 3. 5 years of pregnancy and nursing with a single clasp, a beautiful and stain-free sweater and shoes that make me almost as tall as most other people who are on the shorter side of average height – then, I feel it when I’m sitting in this chair.

I’m confident, I’m worthy, I’m an adult, I’m a professional. I’m in touch with my power source. I own it. You can see it in the way I hold myself, in the way I walk, in the way I am and in the way I do. I dare say it’s my pretty girl karma. Because what I put out, comes right back at me – respect, value, compensation for what I’m worth, hotness, good people, great projects.

And in this case, karma is not a bitch. (Unless you piss her off.)

This post is dedicated to the FANTASTIC Kelly Diels who, when I told her that I dressed hot for the big Dragon Tattoo Blog Hunt launch yesterday even though no one saw me all day, remarked, ‘Of course…pretty girl karma’ without skipping a beat – and sparked my brain and ignited this post. Kelly gets it and just so you know, Kelly always looks hot and always shows plenty of Cleavage. I love her to bits.

What about you? Do you have power clothes? A power look? Are you affected by your threads? How?

Image credit: AlyssssylA

‘This is a very simply game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes…it rains.” Bull Durham

As I see it, one of my roles on this blog is, for lack of better words, to play the fool. For you that is. In other words, I’m taking one for the team. I’ve said time and time again that I’ve wished, both when I was starting out and still as I find my way, that I had someone like me who I could ask for advice or learn from. But I didn’t when I was starting and I frequently forget to ask for help now…so here I am as a result, sometimes doing it right, sometimes doing it wrong, sometimes…just doing it.

And last week, I did something wrong. So I’m here to tell you about it so that you, hopefully, don’t do it wrong if the opportunity should present itself.

Swimming around the freelancers’ pool

Freelancing has placed me in wide variety of situations at this point, I’m assuming you could say the same. By definition, we get thrown into all matter of circumstances where we may or may not have any clue how to act or be or do. Over our heads, soaked to our ankles, blowing bubbles, treading water or swimming speedily through the course – sometimes within a span of 5 minutes. Right?

Currently, I’m working on a massive project with a sizable team, we’ve got a little bit of every role you could imagine. Specific to my ‘doing it wrong’, we have two publicists. They’re Big deals. (It was suggested that I add the capital ‘B’).  One of them is French – and I imagine her sitting at a huge mahogany desk with a toy poodle on her lap and a long, thin cigarette hanging off of a long porcelain cigarette holder between her long thin fingers. Her hair is piled on top of her head and she’s wearing Chanel. But I have no idea if that is even a little bit true.

Anyway, I pissed her off.

You see, on a regular basis, the publicists send out emails to the team alerting us to news breaks or product mentions. And I, in my blind ignorance and bloggy haze of ‘we’re all in this together’, figured they were just letting us know whenever we were featured in the media. Since I’m running the social media campaign, I’ve engaged many listening tools – effectively holding my trusty stethoscope up to the internet – so that I know every time we ‘appear’ online. Obviously, then, I thought I should contribute to these emails as well. You know – one for all and all for…

Oops.

I got told off…and how (and quickly) for this gaff. Those press breaks they were sending were gigs the publicists themselves had landed. The break is there metric for their work for the client. Had I secured the mention I just emailed? (she asked). Um…nooooo, not so much. I just thought we were all spreading the good news. It turns out, we weren’t. Not even a little bit.

All worked out fine, I apologized, I never did it again, I returned to my corner to do my job. And I learned some things, which makes it all worth it in the end:

1. Now that I know why what I did wasn’t okay, it seems blaringly, glaringly obvious.
2. This is true of most lessons learned, except maybe those gleaned from a calculus textbook.
3. When entering a new situation, take a good look around and identify things that might not be familiar.
4. Find someone, either within the fray or without, that is familiar with those things.
5. If you feel like doing a certain something that is out of your general knowledge area, ask this someone for guidance: Run it by them first.
6. Keep your wits about you – did you just break a cardinal rule? ruin a business? step over a cultural line? threaten someone’s place on the totem pole? Put your mistake in perspective.
7. Life is very interesting when the old media and the new media play together in the sandbox.
8. My skin is getting thicker. Once upon a time I might have been mortified or at least obsessed about my faux pas. This time I said ‘whoops!’, laughed and moved right along.
9. What’s next? (Thank you, President Bartlett). The only way out of an error is forward. Fix it, change your behavior, don’t do it again.
10. When you have the best readers in the world, it isn’t that hard to tell them about the times when you’re stupid.
11. I really do love to share. It’s how I got myself into this mess…and it’s how I’m getting myself out.

Image credit: Banalities

For instance, there’s the myth of Isis. You see, the Ancient Egyptians believed that when the Nile flooded every year, it was just from the annual crying episode of Isis – the Goddess of Motherhood, Magic and Fertility (and by the way, whoever tied those three things together for her was frickin’ brilliant, right?) – as she mourned her husband Osiris.

As crops and lives were destroyed, the Egyptians were ‘apparently’ able to handle the devastation with a smack to the forehead, “Oh!” They would exclaim. “It’s just Isis again…and no one messes with a heartbroken woman.” Or so some might simplify and suppose.

It doesn’t have to be Egypt, every culture has these myths and they serve one main purpose (besides entertainment and education): myths provide a logical explanation for something that is illogical, out of our control or just terribly hard to understand or deal with. For instance, why the Nile floods every year causing destruction and death or why mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears or why the sun appears every morning and the moon rises every night. Ultimately, myths provide comfort.

Rolling the dice…so to speak

Imagine a product – not an extraordinary thing, but one that a lot of people are making – like a slot machine. Realize that people (maybe not all of them, but a lot of them) are confused by this machine just like they’re confused about the cycle of the ocean tides. They accept it, but they’re still thinking why? why do I need this? how does it work? why would I want to play? and possibly, will it help my crops grow? (Um, yes, if you win and the slot machine spits money out at you). Their reaction to all of this ‘not knowing’ might be fear, it might be trepidation, it might be avoidance.

But, you run a casino, so you don’t want them to respond with fear, trepidation or avoidance. You want them to enjoy and seek out the slot machine. Which is where the copywriter comes in. Copywriters are the creator of your slot machine myth. We write the story that makes all of those consumer people relax and say, “Oh! Now I get it! The slot machine has a logical purpose – there’s nothing to fear! In fact, what I just read made me feel so good and calm and in tune with the slot machine, I want to go play with one.”

We explain, we provide answers, we bridge, we soothe. Our myth is your story and the place of connection from consumer to product, client to service…and sometimes even ancient Egyptian to the Gods…

Image credit: Valerie

When ‘Mama’ isn’t around, he whines pathetically at me:

“Mama said I could have ice cream! Mama said I could!”

“Mama said I didn’t have to go to bed! Mama said I didn’t!”

“Mama said I get to sleep with my Lego guy. Mama said I get to!”

Let’s be clear, he doesn’t lie well. I mean, I hesitated the first time – but it’s been straight down hill from there, for him. He’s lacking in creativity, yes? Clearly, he needs to expand his game.

Why do people lie?

It’s upsetting that he’s learned to lie, of course, and it’s made me think about lying in general and why people lie. I think it’s about fear. And need. And control. And survival. In his case, he lies to get what he thinks he desperately needs for his survival – like ice cream or his favorite Lego guy. Basically, people lie because they don’t have confidence that their truth is going to get the job done.

So, why is lying Reason 930 to hire a copywriter? Surely, not because I want people to lie! But, because I want them to do the exact opposite. We all have these deep needs and fears and the desire for control and survival – and so, sometimes, you watch companies lie (badly) to try to convince people to use their product or hire them – because of their terror that no one will – which will mean that they’ll go out of business, lose all of their money and die. They’re afraid their truth is not enough.

As a copywriter, I don’t think you need to lie in order to run a successful business. In fact, I think people, potential customers, can smell your desperation and your disingenuousness. And what many people don’t realize is that they don’t have to lie. They have a great story, they have a great platform – something that makes them worth buying, something that makes them stand out from the crowd. But, they can’t see it and don’t know how to say it.

Copywriters do.

We know how to ask the right questions, listen to what you have to say and then pull out the gems and build the story. It’s what we do. We see your truth, write it and make it sound fetching, irresistible.

Gotcha

Because, you know, most liars get caught…and it’s just terrible.

It happened to Jack the other day. There he was, not wanting to get dressed for the day, on the verge of a break down, when he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his go-to trick: “Mama said I didn’t have to get dressed! Mama said I didn’t have to!” Only this time, whoops, he was talking to – yes, you guessed it – Mama.

The moral of this story: don’t lie to your customers. Be proud of who you are and what you do. If you can’t make it sound just right, hire a wordsmith to help you.

And, also: never, ever lie to your mother.

Image credit: Denis Giles

My nose is my directional. And this week, it stopped working. It’s a little bit completely amusing because I wrote a post about voluntarily shutting your nose on the 15th. I can only guess this is the Universe telling me, Not so fast, sweetheart, we still hold the ultimate control card in these parts.

Anyway, it stopped working because I have a cold. For me this is a once a year occurrence, the last time was late last February when I had a full-blown flu. This time, just a wicked head cold.

They say that when one sense stops working, the others kick into overdrive. But, I can’t smell, taste or hear from the cold and I haven’t been able to see since 1983. (I’m practically blind and my vision can’t be corrected to 20/20 even with my glasses or contacts.) So that leaves me with the 5th sense: feel. Except that the cold has usurped that as well. Because all I’ve felt like is crap.

First let me say that there’s something refreshing about not having any of the senses work. While I can’t taste my food, I also can’t smell anything bad. When I was running yesterday (yes, I still ran even though I was sick – I think sweating helps), I couldn’t smell any exhaust. There I was moving up the last hill on State Road thinking, Wow! These cars are all running so clean! It usually stinks out here! And then I remembered. And I can’t taste that nasty cold/sick taste you usually have in your mouth when you’re sick. And I can’t hear annoying people. All in all, not so bad.

But the best news is that I think I’ve developed my own sickth sense: the Sense of Write. My writing has been lip-smacking good. Everything else is hibernating, but my writing brain and my writing fingers are looking for the party. Which is great because I have a lot of work to do. And because it’s one of my favorite things to do. And because my boss refuses to give me any sick time. (So I’m leaving used Kleenex all over her desk.)

Image credit: hebedesign

The frog and the bear were following directions, so they knew which way to go when they came upon this fork. But the rest of us aren’t always that lucky. Like me, today. I’m writing and everything’s going just fine and then I get to this place – it’s my fork in the writing road. And I have no map.

Suddenly, I have a choice. I’m writing about the importance of having community as a blogger – and I can focus on the virtues of the greater collective or I can highlight the benefits of having a few key people. There’s not room for both in my post, but the real issue for me is this: it’s hard to let go of either option. What if I pick the wrong one? How will I ever know what might have been? And, no, I do not have time to write it both ways and then pick. But, that’s a nice fantasy.

As I write this, I realize that the Zen take on this dilemma (Alisa – you’ve corrupted my conscience!) would be to embrace the fork not as a ’split’ or an ‘either or’, but as a bastion of opportunity and abundance! “Wow – look at that,” I would say. “I can choose option A and then write another post about option B. Lucky me!” But, I don’t want two posts. I want one. The right one.

My July birthday makes me a Cancer, ruled by water and the moon and my emotions and passion. Apparently this means that:

• I cling (you know, with my crab claws).
• I have needs that want to be filled deeply and immediately.
• I have an aversion to failure and opposition.
• (Oh, and I don’t like to be told what to do. This has absolutely nothing to do with this my point in this post. I just like knowing that this isn’t a character flaw, but an astrological fact that is beyond my control. Can someone call my all of my teachers, K – 12, and let them know? Thanks.)

Back to my point, something happens to me psychologically (or metaphysically? or astrologically?) when I have to make a choice between two ideas. I clutch them both tightly – and when I finally choose option A, I feel like I’ve failed option B. I don’t like the disparity that is inherent in making the choice.

So, quite often I find myself staring at my computer screen – contemplating the death of a thread in a post. Interestingly enough, the Muppets give me a nudge out of this pothole at the end of the movie with their final song. It goes a little something like this:

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending…”

I think Kermit just told me to fake it till I make it. And I think Kermit just told me that I literally can’t get it wrong. I just need to choose…and keep driving.

How do you handle forks?

Image credit: Dcosand

I remember distinctly a feeling of almost possession when I was craving something. Like the baby was calling for protein and my stomach wanted carbs and my bones wanted calcium and my mouth wanted butter and salt – so I ended up eating dark sourdough toast with a 1/4 stick of butter, feta cheese and smoked salmon, sprinkled with jalapeno stuffed green olives. Ah, satisfaction.

And who was I but the vehicle, the deliverer of the goods? None of it was my doing – not the urges, not the recipe development, nuthin’. And it works, right? The body calls, we give it what it needs and wowza, we make a baby. Another human being. How magnificent!

Today, I was trying to write a piece for a client and I was thinking – I wish different parts of my brain would activate like my pregnant body. (FYI, this next part is actually biologically correct. Ha! You do have to be a brain surgeon to run a blog!!!)

• My hindbrain would call for the smooth flow of muscle function so that I could type and sit up straight,
• my limbic system would insist on emotion and sense memory,
• and my neocortex would demand exciting verbs and perfect wordage.

And I’d just sit there at my computer on autopilot spewing viciously remarkable prose until at last I had created a glorious final draft from what was once just a blank page. To the writer? Yes, it’s just as magnificent a feat as the production of a baby. Plus, good copy doesn’t whine or spill milk and it pays for itself. Now that’s a thing of beauty.

Image credit: Bob Fornal

My dear friend and tech writer extraordinaire, Ron Miller, posted this video on his blog and sent me over to see it. And I have to tell you, I didn’t think it was funny at all. I was embarrassed for Steve Jobs and the whole Apple team. I cringed.

NOT because of the name of the new product (personally, I think this whole hooha about feminine hygiene products is really, really stupid) and NOT because Mr. Jobs looks silly in that turtleneck with those bright white sneakers. (You’re a bazillionaire, Stevie, try a little bit harder. Even I could dress you better than that.)

My reaction was because, as this video points out, his talk was horrible. He used the same adjectives dozens of times. Maybe it didn’t sound AS bad when the sound bites were evenly dispersed – but I’m not so sure. Regardless, I think we can agree that this is just bad writing and it’s just bad speeching.

So, Reason 731 to use a copywriter? We write speeches, video spots, announcements. We craft your message so that you don’t sound like an idiot. We wordsmith your ideas so that people don’t make YouTube videos that mock you. We write good, so that you talk good…or something pithy like that. I dare say, old chap, we’re critical to your successful marketing and promotional experience.

In fact, good copywriters are awesome, amazing, great, magical and incredible…times 20 (just like Jobs said).

Now, raise your hand if you have a nice-sized ego.

And now, raise your hand if you lied on that last one and kept your hand down.

The thing is, writing and a big ego kind of go hand in hand. And if you haven’t quit, gone crazy, or offed yourself yet — which I know you haven’t because you were just raising your hand — then like it or not, you have a big ego.

How do I know this? Well…

To read the rest of this post, hop on over to Copyblogger where, I’m pleased as punch to share, I am now a regular contributor…

And I hope you don’t mind me making you click to read the rest, but this post (and I’m guessing all of the posts I put on Copyblogger) are also posts that I’ll want to share with you – AND (I’m hoping you know this already) it is bad, bad blogging behavior to reprint the whole article in duplicate here. Copyblogger owns it now…

We figured we’d never sleep again. We thought they’d never do it. That they wouldn’t sleep in their own beds ever. That their first night at college, their new roommates would wake up at 3 in the morning to find Jack and Sophie in bed with them.

But we decided to try to make it happen anyway. We were finally ready to turn this sleeping thing around.

Here’s what went down

Night 1 they were up several times, crying. Night 2, they were up a few times and the crying was short lived. Night 3, last night, they slept from 7pm to 6am. Without waking up, without crying, without doing anything but sleeping for 11 hours. For the first time in their precious lives.

Our friend, Patrie, had told us, ‘When it’s your truth, it will be theirs as well.” In other words, when we were really ready and when we felt that in every cell of our bodies, the kids would make the change easily.

Looking beyond the words

She was right. These people that don’t know as much as us, a.k.a. our children, look to us not only for our words, but for the meaning and the feeling behind them. Do you believe this is a good thing? They ask with their eyes, ‘Because if you do, then we will too.’

Isn’t it the same for our readers? Whether they’re reading our blogs, our books, our copywritten ads, websites or white papers. Words are great, but the meaning and the belief behind them – the intent – is what moves mountains, gets people to buy, to hire you, to change their lives. It’s why people like Chris Brogan succeed and spammers fail. It’s why Obama is our President and McCain isn’t. When you write (and live) for real – feeling your truth in every cell in your body – you are an influencer, a maker of change.

True writing (and living), then, can make the difference for your business, your relationship, your life. It can get the book published, the project off the ground and the children to sleep. I’m here to tell you that I’ve witnessed it first hand.

This morning, when the reality of our little miracle set in, I swear I looked out and saw pigs fly right by my window. And they were smiling.

Image credit: olaerik