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Today, I read a great post by PR expert and writer colleague, Kay Paumier of Communications Plus. Her post discussed the space between words, which was introduced by a monk sometime around 800 A.D. Who knew that people read aloud back then because thewordsallrantogether and they had to sound them out to grasp what was being communicated.

I love reading—and writing—about the more practical aspects of the written word. In a recent post, for example, I explored the magical power of type fonts, a topic that a surprising number of people found engaging.

Today, in the same spirit of practicality, I’m ruminating about headlines. Like eyebrows on a face, they create interest and engagement. If that seems a little overstated, consider those Dutch and Flemish paintings of the 15^th and 16^th centuries where some of the ladies appear to have no eyebrows. The artistry is exquisite, but those babes look a touch bland. My immediate reaction is to seek out a Frida Kahlo self-portrait. No mistaking the eyebrows there.

My idol, David Ogilvy, lauds headlines for their sales power, noting that five times as many people read headlines as they do body copy. Then he says, “It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.”

I myself love a copywriting project where I have to come up with headlines. Compared to writing a headline—or subhead—creating the prose is a piece of cake. As I see it, adding interest to good copy with a great attention-grabbing headline is a lot like pulling out the eyebrow pencil when you doll up to go out.

This post is affectionately dedicated to the legions of copywriters out there who may be wondering if they’re creative enough.

Every day, we writers create—I hesitate to say “grind out,” though it sometimes feels that way—reams of copy. We write from scratch, or we take what clients throw over the fence and clean it up. At a minimum, we create an acceptable product. And when the gods are with us and the winds favorable, we can look with pride on what we’ve done.

I’ve just begun to re-read Ogilvy on Advertising, a wonderful book that retains much of its relevance 27 years after initial publication. I’m newly encouraged by what this curmudgeon of creativity says.

Ogilvy opines that advertising—and by extension, copywriting—is not “entertainment or an art form.” His standard of excellence is simple, though not necessarily easy to achieve. “When I write an advertisement,” he says, “I don’t want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

That’s what my colleagues and I do every day. We write the prose that explains what a product (or service) does and why it will make you happy, popular, or successful in your career. We urge you to buy, lease, sign up, become an early adopter, take the plunge. If, as Ogilvy notes, our words move prospects from contemplation to action, we’ve served our clients and our own creative impulses well.

Not Fade Away

The other day, I picked up a copy of the AARP Bulletin. (And yes, it is delivered to my home.) I roll my eyes when it arrives, but occasionally, nestled among articles about healthcare and egregious injustices done to older Americans, there’s some lighthearted content.

The cover of this particular issue promoted a piece titled “Beam Me Up Scotty! And 49 other phrases that refuse to die.” Flipping to it, I came upon a smorgasbord of wonderful expressions.

I chuckled over “Big cheese,” as in “He thinks he’s such a big cheese.” I mused over “Sound like a broken record,” which has particular poignancy for those who had monster collections of vinyl. And I thought about how young women of yore wanted to have a “full dance card.” These expressions fire up memory, imagination, and curiosity about what life was like in the olden days. They invite time travel, if only through old novels and vintage flicks.

Each era abounds in expressions that are wonderfully evocative, and, thank goodness, many of them hang around for generations. I look forward to saying “Groovy” or “What a bummer” well into my dotage and passing it along.

(The title of this post, by the way, is shamelessly cribbed from “Not Fade Away,” that  fabulous tune recorded by Buddy Holly, the Dead, and my fave bad boys of all time, the Stones.)

As a copywriter who does a lot of writing and editing for technology companies, I think about words constantly. What they mean, what they imply, how they’re arranged into graceful sentences, and so on.

Now, I like the writing I do. It’s a privilege to write about a product or service in a way that makes it come alive to the reader, clearly conveys benefits, positions it effectively vis-à-vis the competition. And I love a well-turned phrase, something my clients seem to appreciate as well.

Still, the writing I do on a daily basis isn’t always “fun.” By that I mean that I can’t—and don’t—opt for frivolity or downright foolishness in written expression. That’s why I love the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational New Word Contest. This lovely event, which I hope is still going on, invites readers to add, subtract, or change one letter in a word and create a new meaning. A case in point is “Intaxication, or the euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.”

The other day, as I was struggling with something and getting increasingly hot under the collar, lo and behold, “flustration” popped into my noggin. (It’s got that yummy southern feel, I think.) As in, “Mary Lou got so flustrated that she had a hissy fit.” And the meaning? “Frustration so severe that it’s greatly unsettling.” Now strictly speaking, this is not an entirely new definition. It’s really more of a tweak, but it’s an honorable effort nonetheless.

Talk is cheap, they say, and that can be true. But words, even made-up words, are a continual joy. My day would be complete if someone told me that “irregardless” had made a come-back. Just kidding.

With Style

Just recently, I wrapped up the first edition of a style guide for one of my clients. I was pretty excited when the job was finished, which may prompt some to ask, “Hm, get out much?” Still, the sense of accomplishment in putting this project in the can—even if I’ll be updating it in a few months—is undeniable.

Just what is a style guide, you ask. According to Wikipedia, it’s a “set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field.” Consistency of writing style across documents is more than a mere nicety, and one large organization I write for has several pods of editors scattered throughout. (All the more reason to make sure that what I send over is polished.)

If you write for a living, of course, you’re familiar with the tomes that dictate the use of commas, hyphens, capitalization, titles, academic degrees, and so on. We writers have more than a passing acquaintance with The Chicago Manual of Style, a multi-pound beast, and The Associated Press Stylebook, both of which are living documents.

The story behind the genesis of “my” style guide is simple. One day, in the middle of hustling to meet a deadline, my client and I said to each other, “Hey, we really need to write down the standards we use when we edit these data sheets. Maybe it shouldn’t all be in our heads.” So, I set to work to capture what we were doing. Things like using “real-time” with a hyphen when the expression is an adjective. Or “web services,”  rather than “Web Services.” Or “UNIX,” rather than “Unix.” Some may take issue with our choices. After all, everyone has favorite usages, but consistency is key. Putting simple style concerns on automatic pilot is what allows you to concentrate on doing great writing.

When you write copy for a living, you’re always alive to the possibility that it can be done better. And that you’d best be learning from those around you.

Andrew Ogilvy was alive to that possibility too, and here’s what he says on page 88 of Ogilvy on Advertising, a wonderful book that I just got from Alibris: “It is no bad thing to learn the craft of advertising by copying your elders and betters.” Now, Mr. Ogilvy was (I bet) a charmingly irascible Scot, so he could get away with pronouncements like that. In our politically correct and self esteem-driven world, we certainly don’t have “betters,” do we? And we consistently honor our elders, right?

Ah, but I digress. Mr. Ogilvy’s point is that it’s o.k. to copy. Even good. He copied the best of American ads when he worked in a London ad agency and later began to do his “own thing.” By that point, I suspect, what he had learned from the writers in the U.S. had become second nature, and he could gracefully add his own signature touches.

Notice that Mr. Ogilvy didn’t say “plagiarize.” There’s a difference between outright theft and using what you’ve learned as a platform from which to launch your own excellence. I suspect that we copywriters all do that. We imitate the rhythm of another writer’s sentences, grab onto verb usage or word order, and then we go for what makes the work our own.

A few weeks back, esteemed colleague André Paquin turned me onto a great video from the California College of the Arts. “Enter the Serif” is a less-than-two-minute-long gem, and it’s all in good fun. Still, it got me thinking about how our words actually look on paper (screen) and how they work with type fonts.

If I were writing a humorous piece, for example, I’d never choose Times New Roman, that conservative type style so beloved by accountants and lawyers. It wouldn’t be wrong, exactly, but it just wouldn’t strike the right note. If I were sending someone a serious letter, then I probably wouldn’t go for Comic Sans MS, which actually does seem to work o.k. as my default email font. If I wanted to get someone’s attention, Courier New would lack impact. And both Verdana and Tahoma feel just about right for web posts. As I get older, Arial is getting harder to read, and though I like Calibri, it feels slightly lumpy.

According to “Enter the Serif,” there’s been a secret 200-year battle going on between the Serif and Sans Serif factions. Not being a designer, I don’t know much about that, but I do know what feels and looks good, at least to me. I’m going keep on experimenting with fonts, unless a style guide says “no.” (More about style guides soon.)

Lately, I’ve been making a lot of changes in my life. One of them has been to make an attempt at getting organized. To that end, I hired a professional organizer.

Most everyone I know at all well professes astonishment. After all, when they enter my apartment, books are in neat, artful little piles, carefully arranged on the coffee table and in a wicker basket. The bed is made, clean dishes are draining in the rack. Goaded by New England Puritan parents, I pay my bills in full every month. So their response is, “Why the heck do you need an organizer, Sooz? You’re already totally organized.” (There’s another word they use, and it starts with “a,” but I’m not gonna go there.)

I’ve avoided showing them my email in-box or the two large boxes of ancient tax returns, bank statements, and other financial gradu lurking in the closet. Lori Krolik of More Time for You knows about them, because she was the one who told me to—ahem—gently suggested that I get rid of them.

So yesterday, I lost 25 ugly pounds at the local shredders and feel much better already. This past weekend, I learned to use the notes function in Outlook to consolidate all those little sticky-note lists of books to “read one day,” and so on into something lovely. Simple stuff, but powerful.

And the fun’s not over yet. The only question I have is, “What will I do with all this fabulous free time?” The answer, I think, lurks in those as-yet-unsorted notes for a long-dodged book of short stories.

Hoofin’ it over to Safeway on a lovely Monday, I pass the restaurant I mentioned in my maiden blog.

There has been some progress since that post. It appears that the new eatery is open, though, oddly, it’s closed for the advertised lunch trade. The awning over the door sports a new and nicely printed panel with “Now Open,” the new name and hours, and the tagline “All American Cuisine.” Just below the awning, a big banner bearing the words “1/2 Pound Hamburger and Fries, $5.95” flaps in the breeze. A free-standing blackboard advertises a blues band on Friday nights. (No more hookah lounge. Darn!)

Despite these efforts, the place has an unfinished feeling. The big palms still stand sentry by the door in their gorgeous, ornate pots—too heavy to move, I guess. The name of the old restaurant still appears on the windows, and so do those cheesy-looking stick-on letters with the hours. Peering through the window, I see that the place still looks Mediterranean. As I turn and walk away, I notice that the sign on the roof refers to the place as “All American California Cuisine.” A small inconsistency, but an inconsistency nonetheless.

Lest you think I’m being a bit mean-spirited about branding snafus, let me say that I’m rooting for the place to survive and thrive. My neighborhood could use good saloon food and entertainment, and the owners and employees are nice, hard-working people. You should have seen their pride when they first opened their doors six months ago.

So, I’ll clap my hands and wish for the best. It saved Tinkerbell, but it may not work as well here. As my sister-in-law Betty says, if you’re going to change your identity, don’t do it half way and then stop.

More years ago than I care to think about, I sold Dictaphone dictation equipment in Washington, D.C. I was probably the most inept saleswoman the company had ever hired, but in two-and-a-half years I learned a thing or two about the sales process.

So let me tell you about a great experience I had this weekend. You could say that I ended up selling myself with a little help from the salesman, and when you think about it, that’s probably the best way to be sold on anything.

On Saturday morning, I walked into the downtown San Mateo Footwear etc. store with the idea that I’d like to check out MBTs—those funny-looking things with the rocker soles. I’d tried on a similar style of Sketchers at Kohl’s, but with the annoying security tags they stick on athletic shoes, it was well-nigh impossible to get an accurate idea of either the concept or the fit.

The Footwear etc. salesman greeted me with a pleasant smile, and we got down to business. It took about half an hour to get the right fit and to get in some practice walking (as on the deck of a ship). In the process, Bryce and I yakked it up in fractured French and Spanish as we discovered that we both love to talk and adore foreign languages. Bryce listened carefully, too, and was exquisitely patient. He knew exactly when to slip in a quick benefit statement and why I would perceive it as such. He didn’t flinch when I decided to try on the much cheaper Sketchers. He held steady, as a good salesperson does, until I realized that the MBT shoes just plain fit better.

I walked out walkin’ tall, y’all. But just as important, I walked out with a good feeling, a sense of relationship, and not a single shred of buyer’s remorse.