Category: Writing

Posted on

I am not a mathsmith.

The upside of owning your own business is that you’re your own boss. And what that means is you own a business: yours. So, for the most part, your success or failure depends on the choices you make. Like right now. I would love to watch the season finale of Glee. Or, the Justin Timberlake-Lady GaGa Saturday Night Live from this weekend. But here I am writing a blog post for wordsmith. And that’s what I need to do rather than swoon over Blaine and the rest of the McKinley High Glee Club.

This very grown up insight follows a very educational meeting with my accountant, wherein he reassured me that I am not failing miserably as an entrepreneur. Wordsmith is actually clicking along very, very well. What I found so interesting about the meeting was his sheer command of the tangled mess that is tax law and business finance. In these two areas, I freely admit I have zero expertise. None. And that’s why I got help from someone who knows this stuff. He patiently answers my many (some outright laughable) questions and at the same time gives me the Business 101 class I never took or tuned out.

I’ve worked for twenty years, but there’s so much I’ve never had to think about before. You never realize how much there is to “working for yourself” than writing. Thankfully, there are smart people and smart software out there who can help with all that.

So you can get on with the business of being successful at what you do. Or watch the Glee finale. It’s up to you.

Posted on

Here’s something you can do today.

I planned a post today about logos. I am sure it was just fine, but this post from my hero caught my eye. Since she’s been kind enough to share a lesson I taught her, I’ll take this opportunity to share one that she taught me.

Most people wouldn’t give a fast-talking, nervous high school kid a meeting. Or for that matter, a job. So since that day, I have always made sure to take time to talk to people about what I do, what I like about it and the many challenges of this career. Some people may never go on and choose this as a career, but there are always those who might. There may be one person out there who needs a little encouragement and direction in a field where they are both often in short supply.

Every time I meet with a college student who thinks they may want to work in advertising or someone who is trying to decide whether to choose between creative or account management, I am reminded of one meeting that changed my life forever. One of those meetings gave me a lifetime mentor and cherished friend. There’s always time for that.

The next time you get a call like that, carve thirty minutes out of your schedule. It could be a worthy long term investment.

Posted on

As the green grass grows.

When my husband and I got our house seven years ago, I was very pregnant with our first born and our minds were elsewhere. After a few years, the front yard started to show the neglect.

A once-green lawn slowly gave way to weeds and crabgrass; the Earth below became brittle and compressed. And that’s when the ants moved in. At one point, we pretty much threw our hands up and mowed the weeds (and dirt) and called it a day. And that’s how things went for a few years. These days, though, I have two wild young boys who love dirt and wide open spaces. I need the front yard to keep my house from becoming a barn.

Last year, we found a roadmap for getting the grass growing again in Family Handyman magazine. I was initially drawn in by the headline: Whip Your Sorry Grass Into Shape. But after we both read the article and choked on an estimate for sodding the front yard, we thought we should give it a shot. What did we have to lose?

I’d venture to say we completed half of the recommended measures, got our centipede grass analyzed by Clemson Extension Center and kept it watered for the most part last year. We did see some improvement, too. This year, we are following the plan again and the changes are pretty dramatic already. Hopefully, we’ll make it through the entire plan, and on Mr. Lawn’s schedule. We’re almost halfway there.

As I was puttering in the yard this morning, I was thinking about where the effort lies in getting grass growing again. It’s not the grass itself; it’s the soil. Grass doesn’t grow well in arid, compacted ground. Beyond a cactus or yucca, what does? With nourishment and attention, crunchy ground gives way to soil that’s soft, rich and more nurturing. Then, nature lends a hand. With stronger roots, grass will flourish, retake ant hills and choke back weeds.

Watching our yard fight its way back to life has been an amazing lesson. You’d think the grass we had wouldn’t stand a chance at being healthy again. But rather than scrape it off and start over, we put efforts toward strengthening the foundation we had. And those efforts are paying off.

This could be the year I have to ask the great Google how to get those pesky grass stains out of my kids clothes.

20110501-043628.jpg

Posted on

For the love of letterpress.

When I was an art director, I fell in love with letterpress printing. Never used it, but loved it. Much like you covet that really sweet car, but you never quite get around to owning it. I finally got it. The letterpress, that is.

When I saw the fantastic logo Crescendo Advertising’s Melissa Ligon dreamed up for my copywriting venture, my first thought was: it’s absolutely perfect! A few seconds later I realized it would look unbelievable in letterpress. That’s how I ended up at Copperdog Press last Friday morning.

Jeff and Donna Neese have two Chandler & Price letterpress printers that must be seen to be believed (if you’re a printing nerd like me). Both printers have been “upgraded” so they are no longer powered by foot petals, but beyond that are much the same as they were a hundred years ago.

Using plates special-ordered from a Syracuse, NY shop, Jeff carefully adjusts the depth of the impression and the thickness of the ink using makeready sheets. Then once everything is just right, the real paper goes on and off by hand with each pass of ink. The gentle clank, clank, clank of the printing process is so soft and solid it could lull you to sleep (if you weren’t so excited).

It’s amazing to see letterpress in action in this day and age. If you’ve ever witnessed a giant Heidelberg churning out sheet after sheet, the presses are fast, loud and take little work from the pressmen once they’re up and running. Letterpress is quiet, hand-fed and takes craftsmanship to reach the perfect imprint depth and ink coverage.

Letterpress is not cheap, but it’s also not unaffordable either. It’s a level of quality not often seen in today’s turn and burn world. At first, printing the cards letterpress was scratching a long-felt itch. But now that they’re in my hands, I see there’s more to it than that.

When I look at this card, it reminds me of what I strive to do each day. Anyone can write, but some people have a knack for shaping words and sentences into stories that engage minds and hearts. When I run my fingers over the soft, dimpled paper, I feel craftsmanship. And that’s what I want to deliver on every project, too.

Posted on

Reasons to be grateful.

I posted a Facebook status earlier today about something being one of 100 things I am grateful for today. About that same time, I thought it would be fun to think of the 99 other things I am grateful for. So I did. I thought it would be hard to make it to 100 but it really wasn’t. Give yourself a treat and think of things and someones you’re grateful for. Then tell ’em!

Here are 100 of mine (in no particular order other than the top seven):

  1. My wonderful, wonderful husband who gets too many to-do lists and not enough thank you’s.
  2. My two healthy kids who make me laugh deeply and often.
  3. My parents, parents-in-law and grandparents who took (and still take) great care of me even though they don’t have to.
  4. My sister and absolute favorite brother-in-law ever (this is a provable fact)
  5. The many friends we have who are more like family
  6. That I work in very close proximity to my mentor and one of my favorite people on the planet
  7. The Unfortunates
  8. Snoring dogs
  9. That I can end a sentence with the word for
  10. The Chrysler building
  11. My neighbor who got me gardening and introduced me to Pinckney’s Produce
  12. The Arts, in general
  13. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Amstutz, in particular
  14. Bookmobiles
  15. The WECO building sign
  16. Atomic Ranch magazine
  17. Bacon
  18. Smart tennis instructors
  19. Facebook
  20. Midcentury Modern anything
  21. My iPhone 4
  22. My dirigible computer case from Brokesy
  23. That I get to do something I love every day
  24. Breakfast for dinner
  25. Kids’ artwork
  26. Crayons and coloring books
  27. The smell of brand new tennis balls and shower curtains
  28. A gas range
  29. A “cool” station wagon
  30. That we got an accountant
  31. Augusta National
  32. Star Wars action figures
  33. Etsy
  34. That locally grown food is as cool as it is good
  35. Books
  36. Camping
  37. My new tennis racquet
  38. Fair food
  39. Ladies’ quad
  40. Freedom, infrastructure and the many things my taxes afford me
  41. People who like to make decisions
  42. Calendars, list and organizers
  43. Forest Lake Garden Center
  44. My time as a bartender at The Village Tavern
  45. The Kingsman’s cheese steak on Texas Toast
  46. Texas Toast
  47. Birthday cake
  48. The Tour de France
  49. Vanity Fair magazine
  50. The children’s book, The Little House by Virginia Burton
  51. The right to vote
  52. Forsythia, which blooms just when winter’s gone on long enough
  53. Artists
  54. People who support the arts
  55. When people get the giggles
  56. Harmony School
  57. Corn on the cob (in season)
  58. My garden
  59. Birdfeeders
  60. Good fonts and paper
  61. Hot dogs and cheeseburgers especially when both are on my plate at a picnic
  62. My Wednesday Weight Watchers group
  63. Books and libraries
  64. Cool hilarious people like Stacey and Joey Leroy
  65. That I met Chris Daly in summer school in 1986
  66. Kids’ birthday parties
  67. #gamecocks
  68. The coffee cup college graduation gift from the Riley’s that I have used almost every day at work since 1992
  69. Steve Spurrier quotes
  70. Folding baby laundry
  71. Bourbon
  72. The sound of laugher from anyone, especially if they’re laughing so hard there is no noise
  73. Divided plates
  74. College football
  75. Keyboard shortcuts
  76. The statue of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney holding hands
  77. Farmer’s Markets
  78. That I can read and write
  79. Create-A-thon
  80. Coffee
  81. My 1957 ranch house
  82. Fair Haikus
  83. Avocados
  84. Guster
  85. That there’s a developer trying to bring Richland Mall back to life
  86. Taco trucks
  87. The original Tick cartoon show
  88. Fallingwater
  89. Legos
  90. Optimists
  91. Simple, ultra-smart logos
  92. For people who can read and play sheet music
  93. Inspiration
  94. My Star Wars car sunshade
  95. For anyone still reading this
  96. People who “save” old houses
  97. Fragment sentences
  98. Cheese
  99. That I actually enjoy running
  100. For the hundreds of other things I don’t know I love … yet!
Posted on

I heart UX.

This week I got to do something completely new: a usability study. Being completely new to the process, I didn’t know much going in. Only that websites should be constructed for the people who use them. Makes sense right?

Well, that’s not the way it usually works. Many organizations create the website they think they need. One where content and design are based on their perception of their audience and their needs. It’s not built for their key audiences: the people who will actually be using the site. Or worse, it’s created for the wrong audience. For two days, I had the privilege of watching True Matter completely dissect the perceptions and needs of several audiences for a website that’s under development. It was absolutely fascinating.

Dean penned a great post on this very topic last week. It’s worth a read. It’s full of great information that works even for the smallest website or Facebook page.

My first usability experience was pretty eye opening. It made me realize many websites are clunky and useless because they’re not built around their audience’s needs and usage patterns.

A website that’s not functional for audiences is so 2009. In 2011, if you don’t ask what audiences need and want, you’re going to hear about it. But probably not by e-mail. Today’s wired users head straight to Facebook and Twitter. Hopefully you’re listening.

Posted on

Write. Edit. Repeat.

There are plenty of people who don’t enjoy writing. That’s okay. Actually, it’s good for people like me. Here are tips to get you through your next writing assignment if you can’t hire a word nerd like me.

  1. Think about what you have to write. Who is your audience? Is there a purpose or call to action? How long should your piece be? What are the main points to cover?
  2. Outline. Jot a quick outline of your main points. The outline will help you establish structure and get the information in logical sequence. In the outline stage, you may find there’s not room for everything. That’s good. Base all of your content and editing choices on what’s important to the reader.
  3. Write. In theory, once the outline gets going, writing’s already happening. Don’t be afraid to work out of order. You can always write “Thrilling intro here” and head straight to the meat. Editing is for smoothing out the rough edges and creating transitions from one idea to another. Adjusting beginnings and ends is clean up work.
  4. Edit. Invest time here. If you can say it in three words rather than 13, go for three. Don’t use five-dollar words when dollar words will do. There’s an ongoing joke that no one reads anymore. Sadly, it’s true. But if writing is easy to follow and interesting, people will read through it without realizing they are reading.
  5. Repeat. Always go through your work one more time with fresh eyes or give it to someone else for a read-through. Look for typos, missing words and edit what doesn’t make sense. And remember the typo is always in the headline so pay extra attention there.

Nothing’s more scary to a non-writer than a blank piece of paper. It’s a lot of pressure and stress for being nothing more than emptiness. That’s why I suggest getting some words or thoughts on it quickly. The words may not make it into the final draft, but they’ll get your brain working. And that’s the first step in any writing project!

Posted on

Passion and Best Practices

I saw a great tweet earlier this week from Feedback Agency sharing a blog post from Jonathan Betz: a discussion of what he calls the Passion Gap. Here’s how he defines it:

“This, to me, is the difference between a product built by someone who is deeply invested in the in the underlying product idea, as compared to a product built by someone who is just trying to check off a set of feature boxes. This is what I think of as the Passion Gap.”

You can read the entire post here, but Jonathan felt some of Foursquare’s ongoing success in spite of Facebook Places’ introduction last year was founder Dennis Crowley. He’s so deeply invested in not just Foursquare, but the success of location-based marketing that he lives it and breathes it.

I thought that was a great observation.

In this day and age when so many companies spend so much effort analyzing others’ best practices in an effort to replicate success, there’s a key ingredient of the success they’ll never be able to capture.

The journey to a best practice is littered with experiments, ideas and results that never see daylight. There’s a level of immersion that adds depth to the work at hand. The journey can also include a “Dennis Crowley” who drives and pushes a “good” practice to the point where it evolves into a “best” practice.

All the information in the world is no substitute for passion. Today’s engaged consumers and clients can see and feel the Passion Gap so do what you can to close it. Or even better, make sure it never exists in the first place.

Posted on

Billing 2.0

One of the items on my wordsmith to-do list last week was to look at FreshBooks. I’d seen the time tracking and invoicing program on a few other freelancer blogs so I made a note to check it out. Then I promptly threw myself into writing my first few projects and kept bumping my investigation down the list. Finally, I checked it out today and I am in love!

FreshBooks is built on offering painless billing and it’s free for up to three clients! Within a matter of a few hours, I filled in my client profiles, added all of wordsmith’s current projects and the accrued time to date for each. Then, I e-mailed my first invoice. No swearing. No complaining. No three-step process using three different programs.

FreshBooks makes billing and financials enjoyable even for a math-phobic person like me! John, who has a vested interest in wordsmith’s successful financial management, took a good-natured look at every “Ooo! Look at this!” and “Hey, check this out!” I’ve had in the account set up phase this afternoon.

Even if you’re not in the market for invoicing and time management software, take a look at the FreshBooks website and blog. It’s fun, fresh and injects some well-placed laughs into the blah-blahs of getting paid for what you do!