Two things for a glorious Saturday in October

First, I'm working on an article about how to write killer commercials. Some excerpts will appear here at a later date BUT I've made an interesting discovery as a part of the research process. Remember the adage "those who can, do and those who can't, teach"? Consider that chestnut officially modified now to "those who can, do and those who can't, write how-to articles for websites"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The plethora of incredibly bad advice offered as serious instruction is nothing less than breathtaking. Now granted, there is more than one good way to approach killer copy and creative, but most of the advice is truly horrendous. Forget strategy or goals, if you use the internet as your guide, just pick out the right props and remember to write the video instructions on the left and the spoken words on the right. (For you readers who are not experienced in writing tv commercials I am being extremely sarcastic!)

This particular light bulb moment means I've begun to wonder two things:
Is this perhaps a partial explanation for all of the really awful television commercials we see now? AND, if the other "advice" on-line is this far off base it's a wonder that we as a society haven't completely self-destructed by now! Imagine all those sites that specialize in finding a job, diagnosing your own medical malady, fixing a car problem, any of the gazillions of how-to sites, pages, blogs, articles, etc...all wrong, all complete and unsubstantiated fiction. Boggles the mind my friends, absolutely boggles it.


Secondly and finally, I have officially changed the name of my blog, because as I become more serious about writing it seems apt that the URL not be quite so sassy! I'll miss "i am not a drama queen" though...it came to mark an interesting confluence of dreams and reality. The writing of it quite literally changed my life. And to be honest it was so completely random and steam of consciousness that it's surprising it could become so personally important. But thanks to my friend Jim Bernstein, who with his typical clarity pointed out that people who love writing should write. Sometimes I think that you have to be in the right place in your head and in your life to heed good advice when it whacks you upside the head.



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MY NEW BFF

Writing is a passion, a calling, an art form, a friend, a meaningful enterprise. It haunts me when inspiration fails to strike. It is both intuitive and learned, with ever more to try or consider or hone. And a thick skin is going to be needed. Paranoia sometimes creeps in on quiet cat paws, because a significant part of any writing is really putting your self out there. These are MY words, arranged in a way logical and perfect to ME. But perhaps not perfect for anyone else.

Writing has rapidly become a good friend. Okay, weird sounding but preferable to an obsession with Facebook, Twitter, or You Tube. One of the great thing about being a writer is that it is both time consuming and brutally honest. See how that would be analogous to a best friend? Feeling guilty when neglecting it too long, vowing each morning to spend time with it in the afternoon, and then even more frustration when the day gets in the way.

I saw a t-shirt yesterday with these words on the front "keep it up and you'll end up in my novel". Thought about buying it, but am not at all certain that a novel awaits . Odd as it sounds the real fun for me can be found in more commercial writing; press releases, radio/TV copy, articles, newsletters, blogging, website copy. Perhaps that's more capitalism than art form but in the eye of this beholder it's all good.

Have a good week friends!



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