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

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

Did Shakespeare have an editor?

As I walked this morning, I was thinking about the book I was writing and the books other people have written (specifically Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book which is outstanding and masterful) – and the editing process that surrounds them. I pretty quickly made the leap to the copywriting work that I do – and the editing process that surrounds them.

In each case, the writer/artist begins with a pure moment of production unfettered by anyone esle’s opinions. Or does s/he? Are there thoughts always lingering in the back of the mind about what the editor, readers, customers, clients, boss wants? And if not, certainly the inner editor is there.

Many of us have been lucky, we’ve had those moments. Those beatific dips in the space-time continuum when the words gush in a direct beam from mind to paper (er, keyboard). And in those moments, the editorial thoughts are silent.

Which got me thinking about Shakespeare. He didn’t have an editor at Harper Collins breathing down his neck or telling him that the story would work better if only Juliet was hanging out of her window instead of standing on her balcony…right? Of course, he did have the Queen and the theater owners to contend with (yes, I saw Shakespeare in Love, too).

But imagine him before he actually became Shakespeare. For that matter, imagine us before we had bills to pay or dreams of fame and repute.

Is this what we should be striving for? Writing for the love of writing? Purely that?

Of course we should…

When I got to my computer, post-walk, I had an email directing me to Chris Brogan’s latest blog post (actually he wrote it yesterday but I only got it today because Feedburner sucks). In it, he urges us to “work backwards” – it’s a wonderfully inspiring article that supports the wackiness of my work life. He writes:

In the beginning, you might feel a bit uncertain. Try things out. Build secret labs. Run things by friends. Then, don’t listen to what they say. You think visionaries have safety nets and advisory boards and case studies?

Someone had to hunt the first mammoth.

That’s right, I thought. Someone, or some people, wrote before there were bosses and editors and clients and customers. When they wrote because they were called to create and share. Because they couldn’t resist.

So. Can we clear our minds, in whatever pursuit we’re engaged, and – essentially – go back?

Image courtesy of gadl

Social Media Tips and How-To’s for Beginners

Social Media Quadrupled My Business Last Year

When people talk smack about social media – calling it a waste of time or a fake world – I just smile. “Go ahead with your bad self and your bad attitude,” I say. “Social media helped me quadruple my business last year.”

The relationships are real. Most of the people are genuine and kind. Because the social media world is growing so fast, there’s room for us all to learn, thrive, fall down, get back up…and everything in between.

Social media has increased my exposure * given me opportunities to write in some awesome venues * provided new jobs * helped me grow as a networker, writer & business woman * offered new speaking opportunities…and introduced me to Ron Miller.

Click and Clack

Do you have anyone in your life that you share a brain with? I met one of those people on Twitter. Ron and I can’t remember our first tweets or how we connected so instantly – but we did. Complementing each other perfectly with all of our opposites:

• He’s a guy/I’m a girl
• He’s a tech geek/I just like that things work when I plug them in
• He’s a journalist/I’m a marketing writer
• He’s old/I’m not

And, before long, we became trusted colleagues, attached at the Skype-hip, editors & thesauruses for each other, confidants, sentence finishers, virtual office mates…and now partners. I’ve lost count of the number of times that we’ve IM’d each other the exact same thought at the exact same time.

Why Am I Telling You All Of This?

The ’social media is good’ part is because some people still haven’t engaged. Why? Because they’re scared and intimidated by the LinkBooks and the FaceINs, not to mention the Tweetering. And I think that’s a crying shame. It’s all doable if someone helps you do it.

The ‘Ron Miller’ part because our first partner venture is the creation and launch of Soc Media 101: a blog about social media for the beginner. Full of how-to’s and tips from Ron & I and an exciting gang of guest posters.

So…check it out:

• Digestible info if you’re a newbie.
• Great place to point the unfamiliar, the scared and the unconvinced
• Guest possibilities for the well-traveled.

And stay tuned for everything else we’ve got cookin’!

Image by our fantastic designer, Shauna Callghan.

Are You Sitting In the Wrong Room?

It finally feels warm here today, so I’m allowing myself to think about spring cleaning…the business.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been working away at this for awhile or you’re anywhere in between – I encourage you to take a good look around and ask yourself honestly how things are going. If your answer sounds anything like this:

Things are going okay. I’m doing all that I can. I’m doing everything I’m ’supposed’ to be doing. This is the most I can hope for in this economic climate. What else could I possibly do?

Then, I invite you to listen to this story.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant with my daughter, we found out that she was really small. Everything else about her looked fine, other than the fact that she was tiny. By the time she was 35 weeks it seemed like she just wasn’t getting what she needed in her internal home – at all. So, the doctors wanted to take her out.

The very idea of this turned everything we knew on its head. She wasn’t fully cooked! Babies are supposed to thrive in the womb for a specific amount of time. All of the conditions on the inside are ’supposed’ to be perfect. So, how could bringing her out make it better?

All I know, is that it did. When we brought her out of the womb and into the room 5 weeks early at 2.8 lbs., she thrived. Gained 2 oz. per day, hightailed it out of the NICU in a week and a half, floored the doctors, never had a thing wrong with her.

Think about your business, your creativity, your productivity. If it’s moseying along, but not flourishing. If you think there could be more – even though you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Think about doing something else. Find out if you’re sitting in the wrong room.

Maybe you need to:

• Switch professions
• Find a niche
• Join a social network like Twitter
• Attend some live conference or workshops
• Shift your workstyle
• Change the physical space where you usually work
• Collaborate with other creatives
• Write in a new medium, like blogs, white papers, annual reports
• Get a new computer
• Combine forces with another freelancer who complements your work (a writer and a web designer, for example)
• Go directly after a company that you’d like to work with…

There are so many ways to ‘change rooms’…What could it do for you? How will you do it?

FYI – Flexpaths is a great resource, if you’re thinking about changing careers or creating a flexible work environment.

Image courtesy of RBerteig

Funny. Life is Still the Same. Ish.

Last night was Passover – when Jews from all over the world and their friends remember our history as slaves and celebrate our freedom.

Now – of course I understand that my life is mountains better than my bondaged ancestors. I’m not that deluded.

But, at our Seder last night, we were asked to role play (something I truly abhor) and my character was that of a Jewish slave woman in Egypt. The description looked something like this:

You work 12 hour days working with all different kinds of people that you don’t know, doing hard labor that is sometimes demeaning around people that can make you feel uncomfortable. Then, you go home & have to perform wifely duties such as cooking, cleaning, mending, caring for family & ’stuff’ to please your spouse….

At first I was annoyed. Dare I say, bratty. How could I know how this woman feels? cough, cough. Let’s break this down, shall we?

• You work 12 hour days (Yes. Yes, I do.)
• …working with all different kinds of people that you don’t know (Today we call that ‘working virtually’)
• …doing hard labor that is sometimes demeaning (As in writing about the benefits of mobile dry cleaning or cheap land in the Bahamas? Yes, but hey, I’m supporting my family here!)
• …around people that can make you feel uncomfortable (Uh huh – spammers on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn and in my email box and in my blog comments – talking about how size does matter and helps you get the girl)
• …Then, you go home & have to perform wifely duties such as cooking, cleaning, mending, caring for family & ’stuff’ to please your spouse….(Okay, the ’stuff’ isn’t so bad, but the rest of it bites)

Holy shit! I AM a Jewish slave woman!

Besides the fact that I have chosen every beautiful moment in my life…and love it. Still…I love a good Kvetch. Don’t you?

Image courtesy of Irargerich

Is It Worth It?

Warning: This post is a little bit gross, but that’s just life in the big city.

Did you see Slumdog Millionaire? I saw about 1/2 of it – until I couldn’t take the violence and left. But I did see the part where little Jamal jumps into the crapper to meet his hero. That’s serious dedication. And, it brings up the age old dilemma that I like to call:

Is it worth it?

I live in a house with composting toilets (called a Clivus). They are no where near as disgusting as Jamal’s facilities – in fact, they’re incredibly clean, and I now abhor using water toilets. But, at the end of the day, when you look down the hole, it ain’t pretty.

Last week, I was washing out one of the bowl inserts that we have for our kids’ potties – I dumped the ’stuff’ into the Clivus, washed the bowl out in the sink and went to toss it back on the potty seat. Unfortunately, my mind was busy writing blog posts or something, and without thinking, I tossed the little white plastic bowl down the Clivus.

Yes, it was one of those slow-motion moments…where my ‘Noooooooo’ came out sounding like a Borg or some such thing.

And, I had to decide. Is it worth it? Am I going in to get it? Or am I willing to let it go?

Of course the scenario made me think of my work.

How often does this question come up in business?

• When you see a freelance job posted…
• When someone blogs or tweets about an issue that enrages you…
• When a client doesn’t understand the brilliance of what you’ve written…
• When you lose a whole day because your internet goes down…

Each of these scenarios offers choices – do you you go after the job or not? speak up or not? defend yourself or not? freak out or find another way to get the work done?

How do you determine whether or not it’s worth it?

For me, the determination usually comes from trying out each option and seeing how I really feel. I trust my gut. Sometimes, I need to step away from the situation or check in with a trusted colleague. And then sometimes…sometimes…the answer is so crystal clear that it needs no thought whatsoever. For instance, there is no way I’m going to get that little white plastic bowl.

Your turn…

Image courtesy of Corey Ann

Blitz or Burn: Branding, Selling and Being Human

I’m about to launch a new blog venture with my virtual office mate (because we decided that’s the best way to describe us – though he’s much older than me, so sometimes I call him Grandpa just to piss him off), Ron Miller. It’s a blog with social media tips and how-to’s for the beginner and it’ll be launched in concert with our co-written ebook about finding your voice in a crowded online world. Very excited – but more details on that in the next week or so.

As things are getting set up, I decided it was time to walk away from Feedburner – my current feed client, the one that I use for the Writing Roads blog (where you are at this moment – in case you got lost).

Feedburner sends email alerts out up to 24 hours late. And it seems to have no earthly idea what my actual subscriber rates are. I’m so over it. I know that two folks that I really like (and who have been awfully successful), Guy Kawasaki and David Meerman Scott, use Feedblitz.

I have to say that I don’t love the way Feedblitz looks – in fact, I find the email alert layout to be a little, um, how do you say, ‘kinda boring’ as opposed to the polished look of Feedburner. Though they do list recent posts – the brand and look of the blog itself is lost. Check them out for yourself.

Feedblitz:

Feedburner:

So, I’m going back and forth…and then I turned to Twitter. And what happened was a perfect display of how you can manage, market and communicate your brand effectively with Twitter. (and I made my decision)

I simply asked the question – Feedburner or Feedblitz? I got a number of replies, including one from a man named @phollows (Phil Hollows). We started a conversation where he asked me why I continued to use Feedburner (um, I don’t have any spare time to make the switch.) And then, when I said that the new blog presented the perfect opportunity for me to try Feedblitz, he said,

“@writingroads That’s cool; start w/us on a new project and compare what we do vs burner side by side. I couldn’t ask for more :-)”

Come again? ‘We, Us, I’  At which point I went to his Twitter page to discover that Phil is the owner of Feedblitz. Nice.

Here’s what he did right:

• He’s monitoring his brand.
  
• He showed up to talk to a potential customer.
• He answered some questions (like, is Feedblitz going anywhere anytime soon – and the answer is ‘no’).
• He acted like a person, not a company.
• His Twitter handle is his name, not his company’s.
• He remained approachable and helpful.

For the record, I’ve heard nothing from Feedburner (hey, did I mention it’s owned by Google?)

If only there weren’t fees associated with Feedblitz. But, hey, to their credit, Feedburner, which is free, has done one thing well – they’ve proved the old adage: you pay for what you get.

The Big Unplug

I once read somewhere that one of the biggest blog writing faux pas was to start a post with something like, ‘It’s been forever since I’ve blogged!’ Which I totally understand because:

1. Why call attention to the fact that you haven’t blogged or have a hard time with commitment?

2. Many people will land on specific blog posts due to a referral link or a specific search – and they aren’t necessarily repeat customers – so this information about your blogging habits will be superfluous, fairly ridiculous and, quite possibly, a turn off.

But what about the flipside? Beyond those random visitors, we all have regular readers and subscribers – don’t they deserve an explanation if there’s to be some sort of blogging gap?

Me…In a Hole

That said, I wanted to let you all know about a little experiment I’m about to begin. My brother is getting married this weekend in a state far, far away – and the family is in full pack it up and move it out mode.

I’ve been stuck in my little hole here, working away for some time now…years without air, years without an unplug beyond maybe a day. Wait, who am I kidding. My Blackberry never leaves my side, so it really has been years without taking a break.

The Big Plunge

So, I’ve decided to go on this trip without my MacBook and without my Blackberry.

When I first considered it, I immediately began to shake. I thought I must surely just be kidding. But I’ve been working so hard, that – now – I’m pretty gosh darn excited. The idea grew rather fast in my head over the past month.

As such, this is the last post for a good week…and I wish you all productive, valiant and fabulous days while I’m gone.

Oh, and if you hear something on the news about a woman that ran screaming into a Best Buy and smothered herself in Berrys, phones, laptops and headsets…you’ll know it was me – and that I just couldn’t take the ‘ripping out’ of the cord.

Image courtesy of FHKE

Fears Have Ears

A good friend just told me this story:

When my daughter was 2 she developed this phobia of bugs. It was so bad she wouldn’t go outside. So my wife came up with the idea of her screaming at the bugs: ‘GO AWAY BUGS! YOU CAN’T BOTHER ME!’ And it worked.

He suggested that I yell, ‘Go away kidney stones’ – as the logical cure. And, our other friend, who was listening, noted, “The stones don’t have ears.”

To which he replied, “Neither did the bugs.”

But we have ears, don’t we. Which makes me think there’s really something to this theory. We hear what we say about ourselves – somewhere inside it gets internalized, and we believe it.

The fears have ears.

Are you feeding yours? Or blasting them out of the park?

How does this affect you as you move forward with your writing, your business or new forays into places like Twitter? How does it affect your life?

Image courtesy of AussieGall