Copywriting Crunch Time

I had a fabulous time at Bootcamp, then a whirlwind to West Plains Ward Conference, and returned home with a determination to be more structured in my work. That meant getting up at 6am every morning and trying to be in bed before 10. For the most part it worked.

I had this super-huge deadline by Friday. I had to revise these emails and direct mail pieces for my financial publisher. Really that meant rewriting two completely—as they didn’t like the offer—and substantially revising 2 more. I really liked one of the two in its more original form, so I rewrite it and then used the three magic words in copywriting: “Let’s test it.”  Until we get reader response, we are only guessing what will be attractive to them. So I hope they will do an A/B test and we can see which one draws better… and it would be satisfying if it were mine.

I did get the project mostly done by Wednesday, and then most of Thursday was spent reviewing it for all the little typos and consistencies. Did I ALWAYS italicize the name and add that essential plural to the last word?  It’s the crazy detailed work that I like least.

I also got two articles out for my executive coach, researched technologies for my start-up, finalized and revised a website for them, and very quickly wrote a class description for my life insurance agent. She’s teaching how to use Living Benefits life insurance to invest in Real Estate. They were thrilled with my write up. Then I needed to revise it into a much more boring format… sigh. Next week: the HVAC newsletters must be completed.

Tom finished the porch roof and it looks great. The sad thing is that no one can remember what the old ugly metal roof looked like. The porch roof looks like it’s always been there.

They predicted bad rains coming up from Texas. We had Texas sized weeds in our garden and wanted to get them out before the rains. Well, we only got perhaps a third of them out… but we also only got some sprinkles. We had allowed the sweet potato vine to grow all over the garden. I pulled up the vines willy-nilly. Then I discovered that every place it put down roots… which was everyplace it grew, I think. It also put down sweet potatoes. I think we’re going to have to hand dig half the garden to find all the potatoes before we rototill. And it’s likely we’ll have volunteer sweet potatoes for years to come!

Tuesday, the tree trimmer called and said they could trim the tree at 1111 S. Church Street. The tenant was concerned the tree was diseased and would fall on the house. I didn’t want to lose all the shade. So they came and trimmed limbs back and cut out all the dead wood. While they predicted a kind of lopsided tree, it actually still looks quite good. I hope the tree will stay a live a while longer.

Friday, Tom was about to go shopping in town, when he got a call. One of the ward members wanted to cut down a tree close to his house because he was afraid the next ice storm would drop it onto his house. Alas, in the cutting process, the tree shifted and crashed onto the roof of his house. The only up side?  It wasn’t cold, icy, and raining. The down side was two new skylights in his house from tree branches, broken trusses and the back wall pushed out several inches. So Tom went over and spent 4 hours with about 7 other guys chain sawing, and dragging limbs off the roof and out of the house.

My friend has been working on her necklaces and we went to visit her at a local craft show. She’s excited about the prospects of the business. Lots of pretty things there. I had to ask myself, why will I pay extra money for a great front door keypad lock… but not $30 for a beautiful knitted and beaded scarf?  Warped priorities, probably.

Today I went to our ward for choir practice and sacrament meeting. Andrew Jiles had just returned from his mission in Provo, UT and was speaking. It was a good meeting. I left right after to drive to Ava and arrived just as the Relief Society lesson was starting. After church I taught a teacher development lesson for the Relief Society teachers. My basic question was: Do you know, when the sisters walk out of the RS room that they have understood the lesson and will apply it in their lives?  Then we spent the rest of the time talking about how we can get the Gospel principles into the hearts of the sisters and what evidence we might have that this was occurring.

It was a lovely drive through beautiful fall colors. The ward had a gorgeous maple tree.

After I got home, I took a short nap. Then our home and visiting teachers came, and we had various phone calls and letters to send out.

AWAI Writer's Conference

Monday Tom and I packed and did last minute things. Mom, Cynthia and I joined Sally at the Swiss Ladies Luncheon near Downey.  This is the second time I've gone and the ladies are all so friendly.  Wendy and her two children visiting Sally and came as well.  And Mom invited her friend Gloria, who has Swiss heritage to come, too.  It was a nice mid-day event.

In the evening we went out to dinner with Cynthia and Jim.  Lovely restaurant, good food, and good conversation.  We tried to get to bed early.  On Tuesday we were out the door by 8:45 to go to the airport.  Tom flew home.  I flew to Florida for my writer's conference.

I got in to Ft Lauderdale at 9:30.  I'd planned to take the shuttle, but it wouldn't leave for about a half hour and would wander all over dropping people off.  Yuck.  I was tired... and so forked over 3x as much money and took a private car that got me there in 35 or 40 minutes. That was SO much nicer.

My roommate was already checked in.  She is lovely and delightful... and also very chatty. So I probably slept less and got less work done than I might otherwise have.  But I know a lot more about her than I did before this event.

Picture of me and my roomie.  Below: Pictures from our hotel room balcony.

 At the awards ceremony-- Clayton and Wendy Makepeace.  Carline Cole -r- was the copywriter of the year.  They were seated at the table next us.  Really genuinely nice people.

I know a number of people who have come to the event on a regular basis.  It's really exciting to see their careers progress.  Diligence pays off.  One of my major take-aways from the conference was the path of learning-- learning copywriting or any effort.  Mike Palmer showed a graph-- like a sine wave.   At the top of the first wave is "Uninformed Optimism." Basically we're enthusiastic and clueless.  It's needed.  We wouldn't start without this.  But the wave starts to dip with "Informed Pessimism."  It's harder than we think.  We realize there's a lot to learn and it takes practice.

The wave bottoms out with "crisis of meaning."  It's sink or swim time.  It's when the going gets really hard and we have to decide to quit or push through.  Many people fall off here and decide it's not worth it.  But as we push through, we go on up the other side of the wave to "Informed Optimism." This is where you see the result of your efforts and have accomplished the task.

The interesting thing is that there is a diagonal line running from the bottom left through the sine wave angling above the "crisis of meaning" dot and hitting somewhere around the "Informed optimism."  This is your skill level.  The importance of this is that by the time you  reach your crisis of meaning, your skill level is getting high enough to solve the problem.  If you just stick with it, you'll win.

I appreciated learning this because with every new kind of assignment, we go through the same emotions.  I thought I was the only one who would get into a project and think, "I suck!  I can't do this."  Now I know that's just part of the process... move on. Keep going.

One measure of my growth as a copywriter is that while I was at bootcamp this year, I had 5 current clients wanting to have me do something.  So I was fielding phone calls about editing, finishing web pages, doing articles, and pushing phone calls back until I returned home.  I've never been that busy with clients while at bootcamp.  And I'm coming home to a very busy next week.

I had a wonderful miracle of running into an editor I'd submitted a proposal to, and learning she still liked me and wanted to do business... but the new boss was slow to make decisions.

They were great, busy, exhausting, exhilarating 4 days.  I flew out on Saturday afternoon and got to Springfield at 9:30 that night.  Alas, my luggage didn't do the same thing.  Fortunately I had packed my dress, slip and church shoes into the carry on.  My first counselor in the RS presidency picked me up and took me to her house in Ava.  Sunday we got up early and drove to West Plains for their Ward Conference.

As a presidency we shared in teaching the 8:30 training meeting, but I'd asked my counselor to teach the RS lesson.  After we had a "linger longer" lunch and went out to visit a sister.  I was a bit sleepy... but the visit perked me up.  Tom had left a car there for me on his way to the Temple with the youth.  So I had a car for the trip home.

It's good to be home... and my luggage caught up with be about 7pm.  I'm going to try to get to bed early and catch up on some sleep.

Two Weeks-

We’ve been keeping busy. On the 27^th of September after church in the evening I drove to Deborah’s house and spend the night there.  She had a small out-patient procedure done and needed someone to be there and then watch the kids for a little bit.  I spent Monday with her and enjoyed the children.  Deborah seemed to recuperate pretty quickly.  They said she likely would… but it’s always nice when it actually happens that way.

I came home on Tuesday.  I’d planned on stopping at ½ of ½ on the way out of town… but they are closed on Tuesday.  I wanted to try and find something dressy for Tom’s 50th high school reunion.  For the rest of the week, I was busy trying to finish projects and get ready to go and visit Mom.

Tom worked hard on trying to finish the porch roof before we left.  He got it shingled.  Just needs some flashing and some of the siding from the Living Room wall put back on. We haven’t had rain in about 3 weeks… so these small things won’t matter.

I’d been working on these emails for a financial newsletter.  They were harder than I thought they should be and I finally got the first draft done the evening before we left for the airport.  I also had a web page to finish off.  Sometimes the technology almost makes my head ache.  It’s hard when you have to “translate” a sentence word by word to understand what the inventor is actually saying.

Friday we drove to Deborah’s house. It’s nice to have Barb there to watch the house and care for the chickens and the cat.

I shopped at ½ of ½ for about an hour while Tom went to visit Deborah and play with the kids.  I did find a glittery knit top that was marked down from $65 to $.99.  I like those kinds of sales!  It did have a spot of dye on it from a tag… but I was able to get 95% of it off with rubbing alcohol and it was in an inconspicuous spot. (And she looks great wearing it).

Deborah drove us to the airport and we headed off to Mom’s. We had a ½ hour delay leaving North West Arkansas airport and only a 40 min. layover in Minneapolis.  The pilot made up some time, but Tom and I ran across the airport and just made the next flight.  I really thought we were going to miss it.

Cynthia and Jim picked us up in Santa Ana and loaned us their car.  So nice of them!  Jim was having vocal cord surgery a few days later.  So we visited while he could still speak.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference for the church.  Wow!  Great talks.  I felt many of them dealt with becoming more spiritual, having the companionship of the Holy Spirit, being strong and sure in Christ in a wicked world, and having the confidence we can make a difference.  I am reminded that having joy is a commandment. So in spite of the doom and gloom we hear on the news, we can have a joyful attitude and spirit.  And that which we focus on we enlarge.  So as we focus on joy, we can increase it within us and around us.

It’s been a delight to be with Mom and the family out here.  Saturday night we went to Cynthia and Jim’s for dinner.  Sally and Steve came down for dinner on Sunday and Cynthia and Jim came over.

Tom spent the week doing honey-do things for Mom and a one for Cynthia and Jim.  Saturday we went shopping with Mom… and just had to stop at In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Monday we shopped again. Tuesday morning Tom and I went to the Temple while Mom went to a 90 plus luncheon.  It was lovely going to the temple here.  It only takes ½ hour or less to get there instead of the usual 4.5 hours.  When we arrived at the temple the first few people we met, Tom recognized from when we lived in El Toro 40 years ago.  We did initiatories for family names and then back to back sessions.  It was a delight.

I had send my financial emails off to a copywriter friend to critique.  When I got those back, I needed to finalize them and send them off.  I’d hoped to do it earlier in the week, but it actually took me until Friday night to get them polished and off.  In the meantime, my start-up group “leader” called.  He kindly and very nicely said they needed web pages done faster, how could we make that happen?  So in discussing it he said, “Oh!  Your best use is as a copywriter, not a researcher.  If we can get this material to you in a more concentrated, ready–to-use form, that will help things move faster.  YES!!!  So I created a template and sent it off.  I hope that will help.

Right now I’m eyeball-deep in learning about algorithms that will help predict when part of an airplane might be close to failing so maintenance can be planned and safety improved… and planes can be more on-time.  When I read the patent, it sounds like it might also be able to tell the pilot in real time that they’re doing something unsafe… but I’m not sure that’s true.

I’ve also come across inventions that propose to recharge cell phones with clothing that collects electricity and by grabbing electricity from existing energy transmissions.  Interesting stuff.

Thursday Mom and I went shopping to see if I could find a better top for the reunion. I found a lovely sweater… and I bought it.  But with 90+ degree weather, I decided to save it for another time.  We went out to dinner at a lovely Chinese restaurant that night.

Friday Mom and Cynthia celebrated Geneva Presbyterian Church’s 50 anniversary with great festivities.  Tom and I took that opportunity to go back to the temple.

Saturday Tom and I drove to Universal City for his 50^th High School reunion.   

We had pretty heavy traffic on the way up. It was at the Sheraton Universal on the 21^st floor with floor to ceiling windows on three sides and a lovely view of the night lights.  There were probably 200 people there from both the class of ‘65 and the class of ’66.  Tom met some people who had lived on his street and who had been in his scout troops and others who were in his class.  At the table where we sat, one woman asked if Tom’s dad had taught Sunday school at Panorama Pres.  She said he looked just like his dad.  

 

We made better time on the way home.

Today we went to the Alicia Park Ward.  On their list of missionaries serving, one was serving in the Peru, Iquitos mission where Nathan is.  One was leaving this week for Botswana in South Africa, and one was leaving for the Arkansas, Bentonville mission- where we live. It makes it a small world. Oh, and as I chatted with one of the sisters, she was best friends with our Mission President and wife from the Kenya, Nairobi Mission.

We came back and had grill cheese sandwiches with Mom, Cynthia and Jim and then hamburgers tonight. Somehow they tasted just like the hamburgers we used to have every Saturday night growing up.  That was a great tradition.