Writing Week

After going to two great conferences, I needed to put into practice the things I learned. I decided that the Internet lured me into purgatory. I can get lost and spend hours checking emails, looking at links, viewing interesting news items etc. And that's not even going to Facebook!

I needed a better system. I decided I'd devote 4 focused hours to writing. During that time I would not check email. I would not check stocks or look at article. I would not go get a snack or think maybe the laundry needed to be moved. I would WRITE!

It seems to be working. I felt like I accomplished a lot. Even though there is still much more to do.  Then, after that 4 hours, I can do all the other stuff that needs to be done. Church stuff, accounting, connecting with people, cleaning house, etc. I actually did do some house cleaning and cleaning up the piles that seem to grow like weeds in our house.

I went visiting teaching. I went to the family history center and found some people and connected them in the right places. Tom and I went to the Temple on Friday.

One of the sisters I visit teach is mostly bed-bound. Her son takes care of her. Sunday the son fell in the bathroom and hurt himself. We visited Thursday and he was really feeling poorly, so he finally went to the ER. Turns out he had a perforated colon and they kept him at the hospital. That left the sister home alone. I guess she can get up and walk a bit, she just mostly doesn't.

So we coordinated for someone to go in Friday am and pm while I was at the temple. Then on Saturday she was visited and I went today after church. I don't know if she can get along for a long time on her own. I guess well see what happens with the son. My visiting teaching companion and I will go back over tomorrow and see about washing her hair.

The Darracq's recently returned from their mission to England. They spoke in church today. Good talks.  They are such dedicated people. It will be nice to have them back in the ward.

The weather has been pleasant this week and Tom has worked on painting the deck. He got the  back porch done and the back steps. We worked together painting the white railings. We need to do the remainder of the white railings and also all along the side and down the front steps. And rain and colder temperatures are forecast for Monday. I hope we get it done before it turns cold.

Tom went to Super Saturday with the youth on Saturday. They did a service project cleaning up a lot.  apparently kids all worked hard.  Tom came home wet with sweat. While he was gone, I tried making cream of broccoli soup. It was much easier than I expected. And mighty tasty.

I guess not a lot happened this week.  But it was a good week.

Two Events: PLF Live and AWAI Copywriting Bootcamp

It has been over two weeks since I’ve blogged. I’ve been busy. Some of it, I can’t remember. But I do know that the beginning of the week of October 6^th, I was focused on getting ready for my trips. Thursday morning I drove to Fayetteville and then flew to Dallas, Denver, and finally Phoenix. I’m not sure how I got so lucky to have three stops.

I couldn't pose with Jeff, but I got a picture with "Super Jeff."

I went to Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula Live event. It teaches people the formula for getting publicity for a product and inviting people to buy it. There were over 700 people at this event. It was amazing and full of energy. We went from about 9am to 9pm every day—Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  Brenden Buchard, a well-known infomarketer spoke as well. Yes, this is his energy level.

I shared a room with two other women who were extroverts. It was more fun than I expected. We really had a good time, although we didn’t sit together in the sessions. 

They made us take our stuff with us at each break and come back and sit in a different seat. As we worked through the PLF formula, we discussed things with neighbors and had a chance to meet a lot of different people. The group was so friendly that it was easy to invite yourself to join different tables of strangers at meals and get to know them, too.

While I thought about a product to launch, I really was there to meet people who wanted copywriters. I told them I was there to help people with great ideas find the perfect words to share it. Some were just starting out. I went to lunch one day with two self-improvement coaches. One had a mastermind group that cost $35,000 a year to belong to. I was a bit impressed.

What I learned:  You need to be your authentic self. People can spot a fake. You don’t need to be perfect. Imperfection can make you more likeable. Put it out there—take action, and work on perfection as you move along. Think about the transformation your product will make. How will your customer’s life be different because of your product?  Then think of the ripple effect. If she is changed, how will that affect her husband, children, co-workers, etc. And if they are influenced by her, how will they change lives?  When you imagine the transformation, it makes you want to share what you have that is of value even more.

They had a charitable organization there that they supported—Teacher Aid, that was building schools in Kenya for politically displaced communities. Over the course of the weekend they raised over $123,000—enough to build an entire school!

The picture is in front of the hotel. I had a fantastic time there. I really was all in. I talked my voice out and attended everything. I even went into the bar to visit (and eat a hamburger) and met my best contact there. Sunday morning I went to early mass with my Catholic roommate.  Note the beautiful stain glass window I got to look at during the mass. 

Monday was pretty quiet. We slept in a little, packed, checked out, and I worked on organizing notes and things. I joined some others and took a shuttle back to the airport, then hung out some more until my 11:30pm flight. I got some sleep on the plane, landed in Atlanta at 3:30 Pacific time… so not a lot of sleep. I then got to West Palm Beach airport about 10:30am. I got to the hotel about noon and sacked out for a few hours.

Having given my all for PLF, I had less energy for the AWAI Copywriting Bootcamp. So I set my sights a little lower, and accomplished everything I wanted there, too.

This is the view from my hotel room.  Thanks to Steve, I got a great room with breakfast and snack privileges. 

I pitched an idea for a report to Rebecca Matter, the co-owner of AWAI on Tuesday night at the Lounge (bar) where Circle of Success members gathered to greet. She liked it, so that was exciting.

Wednesday we started with lunch and went on a full run from that point. I think we ended at 9pm after the networking dinner. AWAI’s hours were mostly 7am to 7pm. Speakers were Bob Bly Herschell Gordon Lewis, Dan Kennedy, John Carlton, Richard Armstrong, and Brian Kurtz of Boardroom.

 I had been introduced to Brian at the PLF Live event by my roommate. She’d gone to a Boardroom event just a few weeks earlier. I told him I was writing a spec assignment for Boardroom and he gave me two CD’s with former promotions—examples of the best copywriting! They were fantastic and very helpful.

I also discovered the benefits of networking. Several of the speakers were at the Clayton Makepeace event I’d gone to in April—including Clayton himself. I was able to connect with them again. A group of us women went out to lunch and I was surrounded by successful copywriters. It was very empowering.  One afternoon we walked a bit. Here is a photo of me and a pretty inlet.

I wanted to meet with Lori Haller, who had designed the book I wrote for Rebecca Rice. She’d encouraged me to focus on writing renewal letters, and I wanted to learn more. While we were talking about ways to keep customers loyal, a vendor walked up and handed me his card. He said he’d overheard our conversation and was interesting in talking to me about writing renewal letters. Wow!

When I went to Job Fair, I spoke with many of the financial newsletter companies and a number of them were interested in this “back end” of retention and renewals. So I plan to make this area work for me. I had a chance to speak to Clayton one-on-one and ask him for advice on structuring both renewals and pricing. He spoke for about 10 minutes and every word was gold.

So I left Bootcamp Saturday with a plan of action, some job prospects, and a lot to do. I rode to the airport with one of the staff members of AWAI and Kevin Halbert, son of legendary copywriter Gary Halbert. We had good conversations.

Flights were uneventful and I arrived in Fayetteville airport about 9:30pm. My trusty GPS helped me find the hotel in the dark and I crashed as soon as I could. I asked for a wake-up call at 5:15 as I planned to leave at 6am and drive the 4 hours to Mountain View for their 10am ward conference on Sunday.

The wake-up call didn’t come, but I awoke at 5:47. AKK!  Forget the shower. I cleaned up, packed, grabbed some breakfast and was out the door before 7:20. I had to drive some in the dark, but this was the beautiful sunrise I saw on my way.

In spite of the GPS’s attempt to take me on some back roads, I got to my meetings at 10:03!  It was good to be there with faithful saints living in very rural communities. After church we had some delicious soup and rolls and then headed out to visit some families. I need to learn how to visit shorter. We took nearly 1 ½ hours. I finally got home about 5:30.

I was happy to see my Sweetie!

I asked Tom what he wanted me to say about his weeks. He said to say he just ate bon-bons all week. I know he helped the neighbor build a shed with some of the wood and tin roofing we took down from the Whiteville rental. And he tried to fix a leak in another neighbor’s roof. It was caused by a leaky vent pipe. He ordered a new one but the wrong size came in.

On Saturday the Stake had a huge work day. They went to Salem to help renovate the old school house. Tom pulled up bad hardwood flooring and painted walls. Others cleaned up the yard and worked in other rooms. It’s a lovely old stone building, with the names of graduating class members since about 1940 imprinted in the sidewalk leading up to the school.

I know he went out with the missionaries a couple of times and did lots of other bishop kinds of things.

Branson Gettaway

This was a good week.  The weather is cooling off, the garden is winding down.  The house we've been working on is rented... but not finished.

Let me explain. We've finished with the inside, but the garage needs some trim painted, and I thought since the extension to the pump house was tacky and leaked, it needed to be taken down. At this point, I probably would have left it. But diligent Tom was determined he could dismantle it.

He got the metal roof off. (Don't ask me why it was leaking with a metal roof. Maybe because of the thousands of nails holding it on.) He closed off the doorway into the addition and put a window into that new wall.  Then he took the siding off the addition.  Only 4 support posts remained.  I came over and helped him by pulling one support out with a chain and pick-up truck.   He whacked at the others with a sledge hammer and thunk.... the roof fell down, except on the edge of the pump house.  He got all that cleaned up.  He just has the plank floor to finish taking up.

On October 1st the tenant moved in. She's made the place look very cute.  One drawback. When they came to fill the propane tank, they found a leak.  Tom worked to fix it... but I still smelled propane.  He called a plumber to come out.  Apparently when he put some trim on the floor, it punctured the line. oops.  But I'm glad they found the problem.  They will come out again this Wednesday to fill the tank.  I hope all the leaks are cleared up!

It seems the more I try to focus, the more fragmented I become.  I'm trying to finish up all the last details of the book-- figuring out how to get in on Amazon and how to get an e-book and ISBN numbers for that.  It's time to work on my HVAC newsletter.  In preparation for AWAI Bootcamp, there are spec assignments that come out.  Some have due dates early in October.  Some are after bootcamp.  I tried to get some done early.

I'm also going to Product Launch Live the week before Bootcamp.  I want to create a new website for that and am keeping up with all the Facebook traffic so I might know who to connect with when I get there.  I just realized all that traffic is cluttering up my timeline. So sorry for anyone else if they see all that stuff.  I'm really not sure if they do or not.

In my stake calling, I learned I'll need to serve dinner to the people going to leadership training meetings just before the Saturday evening session.  This time, I'm smarter. After discussing with my counselors, we decided to ask the wards to help out.  I feel a bit of guilt for not doing it all on my own.  But a friend commented that my strengths were in helping the sisters grow spiritually.  I should get help from those who are blessed with talents in the meal and decorating areas.  So I am.

Wednesday I went to family history again and enjoyed the work. Thursday Tom and I left early for Branson. He'd been working so hard, I just wanted to give him a break.  We went to Silver Dollar City in the morning. It rained a bit while we were there, We saw a wild west show, listened to the mustang trainer talk and heard a cowboy poet.  We wandered through the barn with many talented western artists and bought a cowboy humor book.  We also looked through the craft stalls.

The rain stopped for the outdoor stunt show, but started sprinkling as soon as it was over. When it began seriously rumbling, we headed for the car.  By the time we checked into the timeshare, the roads were rivers of water. Do you know you can get drenched in just 20 feet of running to shelter?

We were cursed or blessed with spotty internet.  So we watched movies and read.  We went to breakfast/brunch with the Darracqs who had just returned from their mission in England.  We had a lovely time learning about their time there.  And they directed us to a great breakfast place-- Bobby Gails.  It was so crowded we had to wait both to park and to eat.  But the food was fabulous!

We did make our traditional pilgrimage to Andy's frozen custard.  I did some work the rest of the day while Tom read, napped, and watched movies.  We left early Saturday morning in order to be home in time for General Conference.  We made a quick stop at Aldis and got home with a few minutes to spare.

Had great conference talks on Saturday.  Tom went to church for the afternoon and evening sessions. And offered ice cream sundaes for the men who showed up.  He went into church for Sunday's sessions as well.  I stayed home.  I invited Ernie over and he came to both sessions.

I tried a crockpot recipe for a kind of cafe rio chicken and served it on tostitos.  IT was very tasty.  There was a sister who came to conference that needed a place to stay-- daughter of a ward member.  So she came to dinner and will sleep downstairs.  There's also a traveling nurse from Pea Ridge, AR who will be working at the hospital one week on and one week off for the next few months that needs a place to sleep for the weeks he's here.  We just learned about that, so he'll stay here the first week.

I'll leave Thursday for PLF Live and then go on to AWAI Bootcamp and get back to Arkansas on the night of the 18th.  So you may... or may not get a post next week.