What’s your process?

I’ve had the opportunity over the last few days to discuss my writing process at length – specifically my process of writing for other people. I talked to interviewers, friends, clients and writers-to-be…

One of those times, the conversation was with a brilliant photographer named Randi Baird. I was asking her about her process of documentation through pictures for a presentation she’s giving. I listened to her talk and wrote this from our exchange:

I marinate in the ideas before I photograph for an article; then, I illustrate the author’s words. Working with chefs, the ingredients become the colors, tools, shapes, textures within an image. Documenting a family, the ingredients are the personalities, the ages, the setting, the history. In each case, we all benefit from collaboration, communication, the strengths of our individual visions…and their fusion.

After she read it, she said, “You’re really good!” And I said, “No you are…you said it!!!” True, I wordsmithed it. But it was her energy, personality, intention, words and phrasing that served as the ingredients for writing the piece.

Here’s my process:

1. Meet with my client in person or on the phone for an hour or two and ask them tons of questions. Making it easy, natural, conversational.

2. Listen to them talk about themselves, their business, industry, goals, mission, philosophy.

3. Hear the words and phrasing that they use and the way that they talk – inflections, emphasis, accent, colloquialisms, industry-isms.

4. Marinate in all of this…especially their personality, energy, essence, je ne sais quoi…

5. Take notes, audio or video record – whatever it takes.

6. Find out what information needs to be relayed and to what audience. I like to do this oftentimes in the form of questions. And I ask the client directly for an answer – let them share their expertise.

7. I answer the questions, solve problems, inform and illustrate in the copy I create.

8. When writing as a ghostwriter / marketing writer, it’s like being an actor in a play – I become the character, channel their voice…and deliver.

What’s your process?

Image credit: Chotda

To throw or not to throw yourself under the bus, that is the question.

Yesterday, I went for an epic rollerblade. Eight miles, bright blue skies, forest all around me. And, ‘they’ (don’t know who they are, just know that I love them) had just come through to clear the path of debris – something they do on a monthly basis. So, I was cruisin’…to the point that I kind of stopped paying attention.

Around mile 4 I glided up a small hill and passed a guy walking – who just so happened to be beautiful – and I was busy being grateful for his smile and friendly ‘good morning’ when suddenly I realized that I had reached the top of the hill…and that it was the hill. The one with a treacherous and steep downhill on the other side.

I know this terrain well. My usual M.O. on this slope is to approach it at a snail’s pace, criss-cross in a horizontal fashion and get to its pine needle and dirt ‘gutter’ as soon as possible, where I then proceed to walk down the hill like the chicken that I am gracefully. But, alas, I wasn’t paying attention and I was going really fast. Really, really fast.

I had two choices:

1. Go for it. Engage my core, tuck down, watch the pavement for rocks and sticks…and fly down the hill.
2. Throw myself on the ground to immediately stop the madness.

I chose #2. In my defense, I did panic a little first. And then, I basically did my most unglamorous rendition of sliding into second base. I got a nasty raspberry with a side of road rash on my leg and a bruise on my tuchus, I gave myself tennis elbow somehow and this morning I woke up and felt like all of my bones were off-kilter – like someone hung my skeleton the wrong way on the hanger.

Anyway, I peeled myself off the pavement and started back to my car – lest you forget, I still had about 4 miles to go. This, not surprisingly, gave me plenty of time to over-analyze the hell out of my decision.

• Is this how I live my life?
• Am I so cynical that I assumed I was going down no matter what?
• Would I rather cause my own pain than let the world do it to me?
• Do I throw myself under the bus?
• Am I cutting myself off from opportunity?
• Do other people do this too?

And, of course, like the answer to all of my questions, there isn’t one. I’ve charged down ‘the hill’ at top speed more times than I can count – hair flying behind me and screaming, ‘WOOHOO!’ all the way down. But, like we’ve just seen, I’ve also hopped off the trail or taken my own dive, consequently not putting myself at risk – not only of failure, but also of wild success.

Sometimes flying down the hill gleans brilliant results, sometimes huge mistakes. Sometimes I can’t believe I dropped out and missed an opportunity, sometimes I praise my intuition and near escape.

There’s ’self-preservation’ and there’s ’self-sabotage’ – and there’s a marked difference and a place and time for each.  One of the secrets of life is being able to tell the difference. Can you?

Image credit: The Rocketeer

Authentic trumps agreeable

I had the honor of facing Boston traffic in the rain yesterday with the one and only Leslie Fishlock, President/CEO of Genevate and Founder/Brilliantess of Geek Girls.

Because we are both huge geeks, we talked a lot of shop – and Leslie said a fantastic thing about blogging:

“I read so many blogs that I don’t agree with – but I’m always attracted to an authentic voice.”

If we all want blogs to continue to inform and educate, like the good ones do, then embracing Leslie’s sentiment is critical. After all, how can you learn new things or grow as a person if you only read items that you agree with?

Disagreement, differing options…they make the world go ’round. But there are two sides to this dialogue.

1. The writer must be authentic, speaking from the heart. Their voice has to shine through and their reasons for their position must be clear.
2. The reader must have an open mind, a natural curiosity and the desire to listen, digest, expand.

When respectful people read contrary views and have the blog-given ability to comment on them, the magic happens. Views are opened, discussions occur, common ground may be found. And people find less and less of a reason to fight, blame or -simply- stick to their side of the fence.

I’ll admit that my M.O. isn’t always to read posts I disagree with either completely or with an open-mind. But now I can see that I was the one missing out. I wasted an opportunity to learn, educate and communicate. This post is a shout out to readers and bloggers (many are one in the same) – write with passion, realness and respect. Read and respond with the same.

Turns out we don’t have to agree to get along, we just have to be real.

Image credit: photographer pandora

Twitter isn’t so crazy

This morning I was out rollerblading and I crossed paths with these two lovely ladies that I see out there from time to time. They’re probably about 65 and they’re on their bikes.

We were traveling in different directions and passed each other three times. At each pass, we had these mini-flyby conversations, like this one:

As we approached…

Lady 1: I love your little car!

Lady 2: What is it?

As we passed each other:

Me: Subaru.

Lady 2: The Impreza?

Me: Yep.

Over our shoulders:

Lady 1: Do you love it?

Me: Totally. Awesome car. And affordable.

Both Ladies: Thanks!

The world, as I see it, is currently divided into two camps: those that love Twitter and those that hate it. Which is why I love when I see ‘Twitter’ enacted in real life. ‘Cause them I can say, ‘You know what? Twitter isn’t so crazy…it happens all the time.”

Image credit gianmerizzi

Dealing with hate online

What is going on? Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve watched the Hate Meter rise. One of those times, it was disturbingly turned on me in reaction to a post I wrote, but the horror of it really supersedes the target. Hate is just nasty. There’s no way around it. And social media seems to breed its own brand, or maybe it’s the same old, same old – just wearing a new dress. A new dress getting soaked in a shit storm.

Why people hate

I’ve got to say it seems to boil down to these three things:

• Insecurity
• Fear
• Need for attention

Social media, for worse in this scenario, offers people a filter. They can and do behave in ways that they would probably never behave in real life. No one can see them, they don’t have to look into a person’s eyes and see their heart and soul. They can hide behind their computer screen armed with 26 letters and some exclamation marks.

How they hate

Social Media is so vast that it gives the haters quite the array of options:

• Social networking, such as Twitter. They can bring someone down swiftly by tweeting something nasty to their followers, pushing the retweet or carrying on in public (@reply) conversations.
• Video. This makes them seem bold, when really they’re hurling their hate at a camera, not an actual person.
• Blogs. Let me count the ways. They can write their own nasty post or leave horrid comments on someone else’s.
• Email. Start a hate campaign, make it juicy, add pictures and it will go viral.
• Forums. How fun to start a hate thread!

The Umbrella: What to do about it

In the face of social media hate, you have some choices to make:

1. Fight back. Now this seems like a good idea at first, doesn’t it. ‘How dare s/he say that about me!’ Believe me, I understand that you’re raring to go. But, just like my older brothers who teased me relentlessly, this is what the hater wants. They’re baiting you. So…
2. Silence is really an incredible option. Bite your tongue, dog’s chew toy, a towel. Walk away from your computer. Channel George Clooney and do not engage. (if you got that joke, you get a gold star)
3. Block ‘em. You have the right to block people from your blog and your networks. You do not need to be harassed on your own ‘domain’ – so to speak. I’m not suggesting that you block or censor naysayers. Differing opinions are great and add a lot to the conversation. But hate and violence are not to be tolerated.
4. Find an outlet. Friends, trusted colleagues, your mom. Rant to them. Let them love you and tell you it’s okay. Have them remind you of how wonderful you are and how batshit insane the hater is. If you can, invite them all to an email party – let the stream of love and fun ensue. The hater is left to hate alone in silence while you’re all having a lovefest.
5. Depend on your peeps. Watch with glee as your readers go to the mattresses for you – defending, talking back, throwing themselves in front of you like the iron clad shields that they are.
6. Rise above. Go do something that puts you back on track. Write a killer post. Retweet good people. Make a donation. Hang with your family. Don’t forget that you are better than this hater and their hateful stink. Hate can be like quicksand, don’t get pulled down into it. Don’t believe it, don’t invite it in.
7. Be careful. If this hater is really scaring you or making serious threats, do not hesitate to take it directly to the police. Don’t forget to document and save all correspondence. Not only emails, but screen shots of tweets, forum posts, etc.

Don’t forget that the ‘world’ is watching. Oftentimes the hater is just making a fool out of their own sorry self. If you keep your wits about you and do the right thing, your social media value and reputation will only go up – and so will your self-preservation. Now, go on with your bad self…and make love, not war.

Image credit: Kayepants

Blogstipation (and how to avoid it)

Cheers to Cassie Aiden for introducing me to this fabutastic word…

Blogstipation. Is it the inability to write blog posts? The back-up of so many good blog ideas? Or is it a blog that’s just not moving – no increase in visitors, pageviews, business?

Of course the term itself fits all three of these possibilities….it’s that good.

The inability to write blog posts

You’ve run out of ideas, you’re having a bad day, you’re simply out of juice.

1. Search the net, check other blogs. Chances are someone’s writing about something that either you could write better or their take on it is a 180 degree spin from yours…make it your own.

2. Walk away from your computer. Literally – take a walk, a bike ride, something to get out of your head and get creativity flowing through every limb again.

3. Don’t panic. Ask some folks to guest post, do some interviews – take the heat off of yourself and your muse.

4. Whatever you do, don’t just write something for the sake of filling your blog. People are less likely to leave you because of your silence than because of your pointless or crappy posts.

The Back-up

So many things brewing that you simply can’t get anything done or published.

1. Don’t let ideas back up in your brain, it’s very crowded already. Carry a notebook or a digital voice recorder or a smart phone to get the ideas out of the brain and into the world as they happen. You know, let it flow.

2. Make a list, schedule, calendar…and use it.

3. Hire a VA or other specialists (like writers, designers, techies, cleaners, bookkeepers, etc.) to help you get things done.

4. Prioritize. There’s bound to be something in that there should be done first. Do it…and get the ball rolling again.

The stagnation

Same number of visitors day after day? No new business?

1. Guest post somewhere else – preferably on a blog with readers who have never heard of you and need your services.

2. Use Twitter. Follow new people, build relationships, give good tweet by sharing interesting links and info on a wide range of subjects. (I ’spose a little LinkedIn and Facebook wouldn’t hurt either)

3. Write an ebook and make it free and valuable.

4. Do some keyword research about your topic and find out what people are looking for…then give it to them.

If absolutely none of this works:

1. Shut down your blog. Maybe it’s just not your thing?

2. Add more fiber to your diet: get out there and experience life, learn more about your industry, go to conferences. LIVE away from your computer.

3. Take some blogging Pepto: Shot of Red Bull? Glass of Merlot? Shot of Tequila? Mug of green tea? Flask of hot chocolate?

4. Call me…a good friend, your coach or mentor. Sometimes we just have to talk these things through…

Image credit: Alexander Ekman

When the blogosphere works

I just happened upon something really happy – it’s a cliche, it’s nothing new – but it reminds me about the power of blogging and why we’re here – either personally or for business.

Here it is: Heather Armstrong just had a new baby. A beautiful, healthy girl – Marlo Armstrong.

(the cliche is twofold: 1. babies, puppies, duh, and 2. everyone loves Dooce – told you, nothing new)

If you don’t know Heather Armstrong – she’s also known as Dooce. She writes a phenomenal blog with 4.9 MILLION pageviews per month, sells advertising for a lotta, lotta money, got a major book deal with Simon & Schuster, wrote two books, has been featured on every major news outlet you can imagine, received numerous awards and on and on.

I titled this post, When the blogosphere works because after live tweeting her labor and then announcing her new babe on Twitter and her blog, Heather has wracked up 2,463 comments on that post to date. I didn’t read them all – but I scanned through the majority and they’re all sweet, kind, supportive, joyful variations of: Congratulations! Her name rocks! I’m so happy for you! Thank you so much for sharing these pictures and your experience with us!

The blogosphere has worked, and Dooce has worked it, because she has created a community of love and support around her. These commenters/readers are here for the long haul. They feel like they know Heather. In short, they are her people. In the world of marketing, she’s acquired lifelong customers, trust, a relationship. They’ll buy the next book and the next calendar and the next…

Dooce represents the dream of many bloggers that I know. She’s one of, if not the biggest, bloggers of her kind out there. How did she (and how can you) do it? To follow her example, here’s what she’s done well:

1. The shock factor. There’s no denying that Heather has been raw-er and naked-er than most. What will she do next? brings people back.
2. The real factor. Raw and naked really only work when it’s real. This is a genuine sharing and reveal of a woman’s fascinating and hilarious life as a recovering Mormon in Utah.
3. The voice/brand factor. Pure, recognizable and comfortable. Like your favorite shoes that make you look hot and feel good all at the same time.
4. The intent factor. When Heather started her blog, blogs were not what they are today. She started the blog in 2001 to rail against her boss, who fired her as a result. She inadvertently coined the phrase, Dooce – check wikipedia, it’s there. And it’s always interesting to compare the people who ‘fell into’ this sort of success as opposed to the ones who ’set out to make it happen.’
5. The writing factor. Heather Armstrong is an incredible, phenomenal writer – it can’t be denied.
6. The creativity factor. Heather takes hilarious pics of her dogs. She has a monthly post/letter to her first daughter that captures the events of that month. She uses video, audio, images, words. She rotates mastheads every month and people wait to see what’s next. This point could fill up pages.
   
7. The ear factor. She’s done well because she’s listened. Oh? People like the daily Chuck? (pics of her dog) Then I’ll make a calendar and sell it on my site. In the end, she’s listened and given the people what they want in a multitude of ways.
8. The IRL factor. Heather goes to conferences and meets people, in real life. Is she available? Can you talk to her? I don’t know to what degree. But sadly and realistically, it’s impossible for someone with that kind of traffic and everyone wanting a piece to connect one to one. Has she stayed wide-open via her blog? Yes. And some people, like Chris Brogan, remain engaged as often as humanly possible as a practice…you decide what you want to do.
9. The hope factor. If Dooce can do it, so can I. She’s an American rags to riches success story. And many others have experienced this kind of success or a portion of it. Too many to count want it.

I, for one, was thrilled by the outpouring of love for the Armstrong family today. It showed me that the blogosphere does, indeed, still work.

Image courtesy of eyefruit

Un-Selfishing your Presence

When I was about 7 years old, we got my dad the best Christmas presents ever…three new Atari games: Frogger, Pitfall and Space Invaders. The brilliance of our gift was that we looked like great kids, my older brothers and I, but we weren’t at all because my dad didn’t play with Atari - we did. So, in effect, we bought the games for ourselves.

They weren’t really the best presents ever, they were the most selfish presence ever.

Cheesey as it may be, this little fable teaches us an important business lesson – and it’s simple. Whether you’re a company or a freelancer or a whatever you are, you have to do some marketing, right?

When you (and your copywriter) create your outreach message – make sure that you:

• Listen to your audience first.
• Find out what they want.
• Answer their questions.
• Solve their problems.
• …as opposed to yours.
• Because this isn’t about you.

If we’d listened to my dad, for example, we would’ve found out that he really wanted cheesey music a Loggins & Messina record (literally vinyl), a toy for his mid-life crisis Mazda RX7, Cardinal’s baseball tickets or a cigar…not Frogger. Not even close.

The result for us was lousy allowance rates, fewer trips to get ice cream and some eye rolling…what’s yours?

Image courtesy of sokabs

Can you take a look at this for me?

I believe it was Ben Stiller in the 90’s romcom Reality Bites who coined the phrase ‘non-practicing Jew’ – I’m one of those too, and right now, I’m a ‘non-practicing yoga teacher’ as well. But just like my Judaism, the yoga teaching is still running through my veins. I find myself thinking like a yoga teacher – wanting to lead, make hands-on adjustments, practicing alongside my students, clients, whatever they may be.

My beautiful wife, Patti, however, is a ‘practicing yoga teacher’ and while she does teach traditional classes, her focus is on teaching privates only. Someone asked me why anyone would want a private yoga class. “Wouldn’t that be so weird,” she asked, “to have the teacher just sitting right in front of you, staring at you?”

Yes, that might be weird…it might not. Traditionally the teacher/student relationship was one-on-one with the teacher paying single pointed focus to the student, guiding them along their way. And it usually didn’t look like our yoga classes. When you work with someone in this way, you’re able to look at their body in their postures, talk about injuries or unique physical and mental limitations, etc.

One of my favorite exercises that I used to to with my students, was this (you can totally do this with me right now…):

1. Stand up (somewhere with enough space that you can swing your arms and legs without hitting anything).
2. Close your eyes.
3. Shake your arms and your legs out (like you were trying to get water off of them after the shower – really spiders is a more appropriate example but then you’ll be freaked out about spiders crawling on you and won’t be able to concentrate – so pretend you shake water off, post-shower, ‘kay? Thanks.)
4. Keep your eyes closed.
5. Now come back to standing in stillness. If you practice yoga, come into the Mountain Pose. If you don’t practice yoga, bring your feet hip width apart, make them parallel to each other, arms down by your sides.
6. Now, open your eyes.

Look down at your feet…most people, with their eyes closed, think their feet are parallel and hips distance apart – but the reality that many of you might find is that one or both of your feet is turned out or in (either a little or dramatically) and that your hips distance apart more like a foot or two apart.

And trust me, this is only the part that you can see. Chances are one shoulder is higher than the other, your head is pitched way forward and your right ear is curiously close to your right shoulder. In my case, and Patti always finds this hysterical, my body is rotated a good 15 degrees to the left from my waist up. But I, and you, think we are standing perfect straight, totally symetrical.

It’s fascinating, jarring really. And a fantastic lesson. When I have someone standing with me, they can guide my body into alignment – as often as needed, in whatever post I’m in – until my body releases the habitual holding patterns and learns the alligned way.

So my question is, why wouldn‘t you ask someone to look at all of your stuff? Business plans, new boyfriend, marketing strategies, new suit, tagline, dinner party menu, web copy, first home, logo…

A new set of eyes is likely to find the flaws. You know, when you’ve looked at something so many times, they just seem natural and right to you. I don’t know about you, but I love to be straightened out.

Image courtesy of northstander

The Big Flipowski

A week or so ago, on the Diane Rehm show, Barbara Bradley Hagerty talked about her new book, Fingerprints of God. It was a fascinating interview, but one point stuck out for me – and it wasn’t the focus of her book or the interview. They began talking about prayer and its power and the fact that many people believe so hardily and heartily in the power of prayer that if they go to church and pray their hearts out – and then get sick (as in terminally or chronically very sick) – they are left with a feeling that they didn’t pray hard enough. Because there understanding is that if they were doing it right, they would be okay. They take it on as their own fault.

How often do events happen that we, humans, take responsibility for, bear the burden for – when in fact it might not be ours at all?

There is a sweet philosophy floating around these days. It says that if you think positively and reach for good thoughts, Good will come to you. There’s a dangerous promise there, though, because we are left with the responsibility of thinking good enough thoughts. So, what happens when we think ‘good’ and get ’shit’? Did we do it wrong? I mean, who else could possibly be to blame? What if we just can’t think purely positively? We didn’t do it right, we didn’t do it enough. It’s our fault that we didn’t get what we wanted.

This used to be me. In fact, I started writing this post – from the sentence above this and up – last week and I was living every word of it. I was struggling and blaming myself about a lot of things…particularly the writing of my book which wasn’t going so well, compounded by the fact that the big-time, big-house editor had a chunk of it and was remaining silent.

And then I had this epiphany. A real one, if you can believe it. I was talking to this incredible woman (whole other long story) and I told her that I thought I was addicted to pain and suffering. I believed that I was gifted (no kidding) with the tortured artist’s gene of despair and angst.

She said, “I’ve never met anyone who’s addicted to pain and suffering. You aren’t really.”

“Oh,” but I said, “I really am. Even when things are going really well, I freak myself out and get all upset…” and then it started to hit me “…and I tell the people close to me…” holy crap, really? “…so that they’ll make me feel better…” wah huh? “…Oh my god. I. Want. To. Feel. Good. I like it. It’s been my M.O. all along.”

Life as I thought I knew it has ended. Officially. Armed with this knowledge, I’m incapable of making myself miserable.

I have proof:

Two days ago, I got an email from said big-time, big-house, Editor…she doesn’t like or want my book.

I cried, I was sad. I’m still human, after all…I think. I shared the news with some key friends & colleagues who were stunning in their responses. But I never even went near the pit of despair that would’ve typically beckoned me inside: I worried too much, I wasn’t inspired enough, I let negativity creep in…and that’s why this tragedy happened. I did it wrong. I deserve the shit, every splatter.

Um, yeah. Of course, you did it wrong, you doofus. But not the wanting it or positivity or ‘prayer’ – it just wasn’t right. The book will be better if I do this (more on that later too) – it’ll be more me. And maybe she isn’t my Editor. And…and…and…. Alas, this is a growth process, this writing thing, and it’s meant to be savored and explored. It’s delightful.

I woke up yesterday excited, inspired…I read the Editor’s email again and opportunity was all I could se for miles and miles. I owned my part, made decisions, felt good.

Today? Even better…woke up at 4am…had to start writing.

Why am I telling you this? At least one of you will find it inspirational to know that change – magnificent, profound change - is possible. And that it isn’t our fault when things don’t go as we’d hoped. We really do the best that we can. Sometimes, we feel good, sometimes we feel bad…sometimes it doesn’t matter.

I’m not down and I’m not out. It’s a flipping miracle.

Image courtesy of Jon Hanson