Entertaining Yourself During the Slow Times

January 24, 2012

heidit General Musings, Writing , , , , 13 Comments

Most writers go through periods of being incredibly busy and then being incredibly not busy (like the turn of phrase?). It happens. More ambitious writers will tell you the best way to ensure there are no downtimes is to always be marketing yourself, even when you are busy. Lucky for you, I’m not so ambitious. So instead, I’m going to tell you some fun ways you can pass the time while waiting for more clients to come in. In the event that you never have any slow times (show off), the following can also be used to procrastinate.

1. Create a vision board of the clients you most desire and people whose careers you’d most like to emulate. Fill it up. Be sure to include pictures of famous people, because there is no more noble desire than fame. Once the vision board is done, stare longingly at it and think to yourself, “I am putting it out in the universe that George Clooney will call me to write a fantastic speech for him.” Jump a little when the phone rings, because you’ve actually convinced yourself that he WILL call. Feel stupid when it’s just a Telus representative trying to convince you to switch phone companies. Hide the vision board because everyone you know will mock you mercilessly for having it.

2. Keep telemarketers on the phone longer than you should, just so you have someone to talk to. Because you know you’re not really interested in their newest bundle or savings, but it’s just so nice to hear someone else’s voice. Ask lots of questions to keep them talking and say things like, “That sounds very good, but what else can you tell me about your subscription service? Does the bundle include Internet services? It does? What can you tell me about the gigs and the RAMS and the memory usage data? What do you think the Blue Jays’ chances are of making it to the World Series this year?”

3. Torment your cats by waking them from their naps every 30 minutes to pick them up and snuggle them. Give them lots of kisses, because they LOVE that. Hold them a few moments longer than they’d actually like and see which one makes the most unimpressed face (in my house, Kanoa looks the most unimpressed, but Oskar does this awesome thing where he goes completely limp in your arms when he’s given up on ever being put down again). Watch the Whiskas “Snuggly Boss” commercial and imagine how much better the commercial would be if they just put a camera in your office and recorded for about eight hours. Then imagine how much richer you would be. Then imagine how you’d spend your money. Lie to yourself because deep down you know you wouldn’t give THAT much to charity, but it feels nice to pretend.

4. Read the list of Oscar nominations and imagine what it will be like when you’re nominated for an Oscar (Best Original Screenplay, of course) and all the celebrities want to be near you. Because of COURSE they all want to be near the person who writes the screenplays. That’s exactly how it works in the real world. But with you, it’ll be different, because you’re just the right mix of startlingly intelligent, bitingly witty, deeply insightful, completely mysterious and stunningly beautiful, with a bit of coy thrown into the mix. So why wouldn’t they want to be near you?

5. Check your email relentlessly. How else will you know if someone emailed you in the last 5 minutes? Do the same with any social media accounts you have. Be sure to update your Facebook status to something that proclaims to everyone how incredibly busy you are. It’s important to keep up appearances.

6. Go through all your pens so you can get rid of the dry ones. All the pens. Yes, even the ones in the bottom drawer. Yes, and the ones you left in the basement. And your bag. Yes, go out to your car and get those ones, too. And the ones that you left on the bookshelves and by the television and on top of the fridge. And under your bed.

7. Engage in a debate with your cat about the use of the Oxford comma. Really impress him by showing him statistics, data and websites that back up your stance. There’s no point having a debate if you’re not prepared.

8. Start a blog (that’s actually the reason most people start blogs; they’re bored or procrastinating).

9. Go to Google. Type in the phrase “best writers under the age of 30.” Contemplate the ramifications of developing a drinking problem when you read glowing reviews of all the amazing writers who’ve done amazing things with their amazing gifts, all under the amazing age of 30.

10. Decide you’re going to write a book. Come up with the book’s title and all chapter titles. Imagine the glowing reviews from JK Rowling, Stephen King, Michael Ondaatje and other great writers. Feel happy about your imagined future success. Go to bed and vow that tomorrow, you’ll actually seek out paying clients.

Marketing Tip: It’s Not Just About the Writing

January 17, 2012

heidit Business, Writing , , , , , , 5 Comments

Okay, I know a huge portion of your job as a writer is the writing (and writing-related tasks). Obviously, when you market yourself as a writer, people want to know about your writing and focus on the writing services you provide. So when you go to meetings you talk a lot about the projects you’ve completed, written work you’re proud of and how your writing benefits the potential client.

That’s all fantastic.

But as a writer, you’re not just providing the client with written materials. You’re also giving them–not to make this sound too cliched, but let’s just go with it–the gift of time. Because every word you write is a word the client isn’t agonizing over. Every minute you spend on reports is time they can spend in other activities, such as choosing a long-distance carrier or hiring an administrative assistant. Every grant proposal you write is one they don’t have to, giving them the time to oversee important fundraising events, like whatever run is going on this week (seriously, there is  A LOT of running for charity going on).

Why is this important? Because when you market yourself to a client, the focus is often on the final product and the client will–understandably–put a dollar value on that product and then determine whether your cost is worth that value. But they forget about all the time, hassle and annoyance they face if they were to write the document themselves. When they view it in that light, your writing suddenly seems a lot more valuable.

Take the case of grant writing. I wrote a post about it almost two years ago, but since that time, I’ve further refined my thinking on the subject.

Some organizations want grant writers to provide their services but only get paid if the grant application is successful. On the surface, this seems fair (although you should reread my post to see all the reasons why it isn’t fair). But, if you’re only focused on the document provided, then the success of that document–whether or not it obtains the grant–determines the writers’ value to the organization.

But that perspective completely ignores that the writer, by writing the application, has now freed up the organization’s staff to focus on other, equally important tasks. The organization has not only benefited by having the application written, it has benefitted by having man-hours freed up.

To put it another way: If the organization’s staff person had written the grant application, she would (she SHOULD–I can’t speak for organizations that expect their staff to work for free, and for salaried people grant writing should appear in their job description) be paid for her hours, regardless of whether or not the application was successful. And even with a staff person writing the application, there is no guarantee that the application will be successful. But the expectation is still that the staff person would be paid for time spent writing the application. Therefore, you should be paid, too.

Another example: when you ghost-write a blog post for a small business, you’re not just providing the owner with 500 words about the secret to successful marketing. You’re making it so the business owner has more time (and energy) to devote to other aspects of his business, such as meeting with potential clients, working on a project or choosing suppliers. And, because you’re a writer, you’re probably still getting the blog post done in a fraction of the time it would take him.

When companies and organizations determine if a cost is worth their money, they often consider only the final product being offered. It’s natural that the client would say, “Well, that blog post didn’t bring in a lot of customers and I’m sure I could do it myself, so maybe I don’t need you.” It’s important to remind them that you’re not just providing written materials, you’re also freeing up their time to focus on other things–things they’re good at and enjoy.

Ask Friends for Help

January 12, 2012

heidit Writing , , , , 3 Comments

Last week, I was at the pharmacy counter at my local grocery store, picking up some antibiotics (they were for my cat, who was sick with a respiratory infection and so was prescribed some cherry flavoured antibiotics and all I can say about that is he threw it up immediately upon it hitting his throat, so that was $20 and 40 minutes of my life that were not well spent). But I digress. As I stood awaiting instructions, an advertisement taped to the side of cubicle caught my attention. It actually took two reads for me to digest what I had seen. I’ll rewrite it here for you, with the name of the company changed to prevent embarrassment.

“Let Acme Pharmaceuticals Make Your Life Easier With Diabetes.”

I know what they mean to say, but what they mean to say and what they’ve actually said are entirely different. What they mean is, they can help make the lives of people who have diabetes easier. What they’ve offered to do, however, is give us all diabetes in an attempt to make our lives easier. Now, I’m no medical expert but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would say that her life has been made easier by having diabetes.

This should have been easily caught. I can’t imagine that more than two or three people would have read this without someone saying, “Hey, do you know what you’re actually saying here?”

When we writers work long hours agonizing over the wording of a single sentence, it can be difficult to see all the ways the sentence can be read, good or bad. That’s why I have a few people around me who I can easily ask about something I’ve written.

I have teacher friends (some of them English teachers), who can tell me if I’ve misused a word or have an improperly placed apostrophe or if the sentence is awkward and clumsy. I have people with knowledge in a variety of subjects to tell me if I’ve misstated something or if my sentence isn’t really relevant (or clever) to people with knowledge in that area (because apparently I think I’m a lot more clever than I actually am).

And then I have people who–thanks to genetics and an immaturity that runs deeper than the ocean–can turn absolutely any sentence, word or glance into some form of double entendre (and, despite my use of the word entendre, the jokes are RARELY all that high-brow). They could read a page in the phone book and find a way to make low-brow comments about most of the names they found.

If I have any question about the unintended meaning of something I’ve written, I’ll have them read it over to tell me if they can quickly come up with some sort of sexual joke based on what I’ve written. If they can’t in five to ten seconds, then the sentence is okay.

Why do I ask people who aren’t necessarily writers to look these things over? Because they can catch mistakes that I may have missed or double meanings that weren’t intended. When I’ve spent hours perfecting a few sentences, my brain will no longer catch all the possible permutations of a sentence. It just won’t. But a fresh mind–someone who is less focused on the correct grammar in a sentence and more likely to see things that the average reader will catch–can spot those things quickly, saving me the embarrassment of offering to give people diabetes to make their lives easier.

I don’t always involve them in my work, but it’s nice to know that I have people around me who are willing to read over my work and let me know if I’ve inadvertently branded something with a tagline that makes it sound like a friendly massage parlour, or an infection you pick up when you drink the water in a third-world country. It saves me time and embarrassment and it also saves my client time (not to mention potential embarrassment).

So, don’t be afraid to ask your friends–high brow and low brow–for a little help reading over stuff you’ve written. You never know what gems they’ll find hidden in your copy, but you’ll be glad they found the errors, before the general public finds them, because believe me, they will.

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