Trouble is, it’s actually our neighbours who are selling. It’s easy to see how the mistake happened; we’re number 7 and our neighbours are 7A, the property having been subdivided sometime in the ’80s. But if you’re going to market directly to those who are likely to need your services sometime in the near future – and if not, then why? – it’s worth double-checking to make sure it’s going to the right potential customer.

Otherwise, it might instead end up with someone who just writes a blog post mocking your mistake.

I’ve said this for years. Poor writing and spelling detracts from the overall professionalism and credibility of your site, and no matter how good the design, how snazzy the HTML5, how clever the SEO, you will be judged on the site’s copy. Because that’s what people engage with the most, what they use to guide them around the site and make that all-important decision to book an appointment or draw out their credit card. Even if they don’t realise it.

Which is why people like me are around. Rule number one: if you don’t trust yourself more than your spellchecker (and you shouldn’t trust the spellchecker), look for a copywriter.

Image: Perfect Man Facebook page

Since I became a copywriter, I’ve had to train myself to pay more attention to advertising. Ads in magazines and newspapers don’t tend to be a problem, and nor do billboards, but thanks to current technology allowing me to skip ahead whole minutes when I’ve recorded something, I don’t often watch ads on the telly.

Until TVNZ wised up to that and started putting on a short ad after the promos that usually herald the end of the ad break.

Anyway, for the last year or so I’ve been very taken with the Perfect Italiano ‘Perfect Man’ ads. If you haven’t seen them, the protagonist is a very earnest and sterotypically attractive (pseudo?) Italian guy who loves to cook and listen to the problems of your friends while painting and practicing his listening face. They’re quite hilarious – and they’re that rare type of ad that I don’t seem to tire of.

This is why I think they work:
1) They’re intentionally silly. It’s very humanising when a company doesn’t take itself so seriously.

2) They do a good job of appealing to the target demographic: women. It may sound sexist, but by and large, women are still the ones who are often in charge of the cooking and shopping (where are those hunter-gatherers?). This guy is the polar opposite of what most women expect of their partners: and things are usually funnier when they lean towards the extreme.

3) They have a character. Having a character is nothing new in ads; two examples that spring to mind are the American banker Goldstein from the ASB ads, and the Anchor family from the early 90s. But people are more inclined to buy when they can associate a person with a brand – that’s why I have a photo of myself on my homepage – and this guy is especially memorable.

4) They do social media. Because these ads give me a good giggle, I follow the Perfect Man on both Facebook and Twitter. Then I get to see new gems outside the TV ads, like this: “Today I put a cast on a kitten to mend his broken leg. He was brave like a tiny lion.” Show me a woman, or even a man, who won’t laugh at that. The best thing about the Facebook and Twitter feeds is that they’re so beautifully in character; you can hear the Perfect Man’s voice when you read them. That’s damn hard to do.

Do you have a favourite ad? And what is it that you like about it?

But – and yes, this is one of those blog posts where you relate your topic to something apparently unrelated – I started thinking about ways in which writing, especially copywriting, is like sewing. Some of my thoughts:

- The preparation takes longer than the project. Like the rigmarole of washing fabric, pressing it, cutting out your pieces, and pinning or basting them together before you stitch them, there’s so much to be done before you start writing. Research, planning, brainstorming – but do it right, without cutting corners, and that’s how you do a good job.

- There’s a lot to learn at the start, then it’s just building on what you know. Once you know about seams, grains, tensions, fabric types, interfacing, and machine feet, it’s just a matter of practice. Copywriting is a different beast from other types of writing – but once you learn about target audiences, the power of persuasion, how to think like your reader, and what’s most appropriate for the job at hand, all you need to do is use those skills until they’re second nature, and never stop learning.

- You’ll start paying attention to examples everywhere. These days, I can’t look at a top someone’s wearing without taking note of the seaming, dart placement, and tailoring. I also can’t read a billboard or sales letter without looking at how they’ve phrased their sentences, and figuring out why. And I’ve learned a lot by doing that; it’s perversely fun to find an example of poor writing and pick holes in why I wouldn’t do it like that.

- The finishing touches are very important. You can’t just stitch up some bits of fabric and start wearing it. Seams need to be pressed and finished, and threads need to be clipped. Likewise writing – you can’t just stop typing and find it finished. It needs reading thoroughly, replacing words that don’t work, refining sentences that could be that much snappier. Then it’s done.

- You finish one project, you’re itching for the next. Enough said, really.

It’s all about context. And sure, you have to judge your audience, but a well-placed swear word is almost like a secret handshake; it lets all parties know that they’re equals, there’s no standing on ceremony, and they’re comfortable with each other.

Which is why I was surprised to read today that complaints were made about the use of a certain word that refers to a part of the female anatomy on the TV show Outrageous Fortune (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10680627)

For those not from New Zealand, Outrageous Fortune is about a family of white-trash petty criminals whose mother decides they’re going straight after dad is banged up. It’s a comedy-drama that’s realistically full of sex and bad language. It’s also historically been on at 9.30pm on Tuesday nights, though this season (its last) for some reason is on an hour earlier.

Admittedly, it’s mostly the right-wing ‘protect the fabric of society’ groups who are gnashing their teeth over this. The thing is, it seems a pointless complaint. The show is in its final few weeks now, and they’ve had six years to complain about it. I don’t even think it’s a valid argument to say that the offending word was said too early, at 8.42, because by now everyone knows how Outrageous Fortune rolls, and if parents are dumb enough to consider it suitable viewing for their kids because of the time it’s on, the kids hearing a few dirty words are probably the least of their worries.

Because I see words as just being forms of expression, rather than entities of their own, it takes a lot to horrify me when it comes to their use. I’ve heard some beautifully creative combinations of swear words, and rather than make me gasp and clutch my pearls, it sometimes inspires me to come up with my own. I’m not above using naughty words myself on occasion, but only among friends, and there are certain ones I would never, ever use because of how offensive they are to others. And those are also the ones that aren’t that much fun to use anyway.

End note: I managed to write 440 words about swear words without actually using one. My grandmother would be proud.

The Hamilton Halo project has been working hard to bring back native New Zealand birds, such as the tui and bellbird, into Hamilton’s suburbs. Apparently these birds, tui especially, used to be common in this city but predators and loss of habitat caused them to vanish.

When I first moved to Wellington in 2006, I lived in an old house atop a hill in Brooklyn that had a kowhai tree outside my bedroom window. Every morning I’d wake up to the distinctive call* of the tui, and it was amazing, as I’d only ever seen them in free-flight aviaries in zoos.

Now though, back in Hamilton, I’m regularly hearing them, and the other day was lucky enough to see a pair in a tree at my house. It gives me a real sense of being ‘home’ to have these unique New Zealand birds around the place, and hearing them never fails to make me smile.

So good on you Hamilton Halo. What a gift you’re giving Hamilton.

*Call from Environment Waikato site, provided by the Department of Conservation.

Photo: http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o166/jlbyler/FACEPALM.jpg

Got the person’s name wrong at the top of an email
There are variations on this. You might be sending an identical email to a number of people and have left the ‘Dear XXX’ at the top. (Bonus points if it’s an invoice!) Or you might have cut and pasted a previously sent email, and forgotten to change the name at the top. Or, my favourite, you type in ‘Dear wrong-but-very-similar name’ and don’t notice until you’ve hit ‘send’. And there’s nothing you can do but resend the email and hope they don’t notice the name and assume a glitch has caused you to send it twice.

Said the wrong thing at a function
Maybe you had one too many, or you just got a little out of your depth, or you weren’t quite sure if the other person is joking around with you. Whatever, you make a quip or let a naughty word inappropriately slip out, and in that second after, that pause lets you know that you’ve entered Faux Pas country. Time to change the subject or politely excuse yourself.

Answered “Are you busy?” with anything other than “yes”
In a client-provider situation, when the client asks if you’re busy, the only correct answer is yes. This lets them know that you’re successful and well worth the dollars they’re paying you. Telling them “it’s not too bad” or “actually, it’s pretty quiet at the moment” are both wrong answers. When in doubt, treat it like “how are you?” in a social situation – people don’t want to know that you burnt your toast or that you think you’re developing a serious addiction to edamame beans. You always answer “fine, thanks”.

What have you done that makes you cringe?

Image: http://www.narrativetherapy.com.au/blog/

Sometimes I have to work harder to get going than I do on the actual work. This has always been a problem for me – I was always the “I’ve almost started!” kid when it came to homework. But I have never missed a deadline, so a lot of it comes down to knowing your weaknesses, and exploiting them where necessary.

So here are five tricks I’ve learned that work for me; feel free to disagree and give me something better to work with.

1) Get the slacking off out of the way first. When I switch on the computer, I look at my RSS feeds first, including the just-for-fun ones. Then I read my two main news sites. The idea is that I run out of temptation so I have no choice but to get on with the task at hand.

2) Use another web browser for work stuff. This is my favourite. I use Firefox usually, but when I have to look at client sites and do web research for work, I’ve been using Chrome. In Chrome, I have no bookmarks, no RSS feeds, and no saved sites – ergo, nothing to pull my attention away.

3) Take frequent breaks. I’m one of those people who works best in bursts, rather than for long stretches. I know when I can soldier on through, and when my attention has waned to the point that I read the same sentence over and over. That’s when I go and get another coffee or hang out the washing, ready to start again.

4) Do the easy work first. Lots of people say to get the hard stuff done first, but that’s not how I roll, baby. I like to ease myself in; by the time I get to doing the hard stuff, I’m in work mode and I can stay on-task better.

5) Religiously fill out my timesheet. I just use a notepad document for each project and log start/end times each day. It makes me very conscious that it’s work time – and I can see how long it is between bouts of work, which is often a good kick in the pants. It’s vital to do proper timesheets anyway if, like me, you charge by the hour, but this way I’m using it to my advantage.

Any other good tips?

Image: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2008/06/

But the LiveScribe is different. LiveScribe is giving me intense, unrivalled feelings of *WANT*.

It has a pen with embedded digital recorder and computer which, when used with special paper, records what it’s writing for later upload, and syncs those notes with what’s been recorded. For writers, especially those who do a significant amount of interviewing, this could change the world. It’s so much easier to engage in a conversation if you’re not frantically scribbling at the same time, hence why dictaphones became popular. But the joy of these is that it’s nice and discreet, not a box sitting on the table and intimidating your subject. And for someone like me who struggles sometimes to decipher their own scrawl, it would save a lot of time and confused squinting.

Not to mention that every time I used it, I’d feel like I was in James Bond or Get Smart.

You might wonder what rock I’ve been living under, given that according to Wikipedia this product has existed since 2005. In my defence, I live in New Zealand, and unless they’re from a huge corporation, we often don’t hear about things until long after they’re old news. Even in this world of instant information.

Passion in one’s work is something I’ve thought about a lot in recent years. Do you have to have it to do a good job? I don’t think so. When I was younger and trying to choose a career path, it was stressful because I didn’t know what I was really passionate about, but felt under pressure not to spend a working life doing something I didn’t leap out of bed each morning with a fire, a joyful desperation, to get on with. With each birthday, that idealism has sapped away and been replaced with a more realistic view.

It is important that you at least like what you do. I like writing a lot. I like editing better (geeky as it is, nothing quite compares to the little rush I get from fixing a misplaced apostrophe, or correcting a clunky sentence). But I’m very happy to be doing writing, and I think that shows in my work. I’ve had office jobs that I really didn’t care about, and that also showed. You can’t love everything you write about, but as long as you at least like the process, that’s plenty. When I can combine something that I am passionate about (dog behaviour, animal welfare) with writing, that rocks, and I smile.

There will be people who think that without that elusive great passion, you have no business to be writing. I disagree. It’s cool if you’re one of those people who can make a career out of their passion, but it’s also good to be someone who can stop when they’re finished, step away from the computer, and go and do something else they love, without making their work the feature of their life. After all, if you want your house painted, you don’t hire Picasso.