How I'm Learning to Write.

I've been writing for a living, earning my keep from behind a keyboard, for more than 45 of my 68 years. People who pay me, people in the ad industry, have almost always considered me a "good writer." But only over the last 30 years or so, have I begun to feel I was decent. I've gained confidence as a writer. 

Mostly I've gained confidence because I've learned that the best way to get somewhere, or to do something, or to advance is to stop thinking and start doing. That is, put one foot in front of the other, put one word next to another, make a move and take your hand off the chess piece and see what happens next.

That proclivity to stop thinking and start acting has been helped by writing a blog. I've written virtually a post every working day since 2007, with the consistency that makes a Swiss watch look like a borderline personality. 

Ad Aged blogposts, by year, since inception.

Creativity is a muscle. It's a skill. It's a game that some of us play. Like working on your pickle-ball game, or your curveball, our, like Arachne, your weaving, you can improve with practice. You can gain, with time and exercise, some of the confidence that maybe you weren't born with or which was beaten out of you by people who were threatened by you. Or, worse, the ones who though they've never actually done anything, know all the answers.

The Fable of Arachne, by Velasquez.

Of course, a large part of becoming a writer is becoming a reader. You don't have to be scholarly or methodical about reading. You just have to do it. 

My elder daughter once wrote perhaps the best essay I ever read on life in the Soviet Union. She was a tenth grader when she wrote it and she was enrolled in an elite Manhattan private school that handed out "A's" like trump disburses Venezuelan oil. She wrote a critique of capitalism based on Archie comic books from the point of view of Nikita Khrushchev. If you read voraciously, you soon learn you can get away with insouciance like that and that leads, I think, to believing in your voice, not hiding behind someone else's. 

A key if you're a creative, not merely a stylist.

I read three things Friday morning, before 7:30AM, on the day after Christmas. Three items that prompted this post. 

First, this from an obituary in the Times. (I recommend obituaries for good writing. It takes a rare skill and great economy to sum up a 90-year-life in a couple hundred words.) 

In this obituary of John Carey, I found this assertion. It certainly resonated with me. So much so-called art--even hoity-toity crap that so many agencies game the awards shows with is so stuffed-to-the-gills with horse-manure that it speaks and moves and motivates only those among us who are Manuretarians, that is they eat wholesale the offal of their awfulness. 

Further along in the same obituary, I happened upon these few sentences. I took just one writing class in my life, in college. And about ten years ago I went to a week-long writer's workshop at a retreat in Provincetown, Cape Cod. Below is about the best writing advice you'll ever get. Imagine if it were applied to the interminable "decks" you have to sit through, the officious corporate press-releases and pompous feedback you've been 360ed with through the decades:

Finally, I read these two bits from a newsletter by the Foreign editor (not a foreign editor) in the Economist. 

If I were working in an agency now, I would send the highlighted portions to everyone in the joint. That's how important I think they are.

1. It is a privilege to write for intelligent readers. (I'd add, respecting those you write for--not just the clients who want you to add 27 more bullet points--is about 99-percent of what it takes to write well.) If you respect their time, their need for simplicity, and also give them something to think about and smile about, we'd all be better off. We'd all get more from reading.

2. Finally, from the second highlight below, a short statement being polite.

I hope my many clients are reading this. I hope those who aren't yet my clients are, too.

Writing at its best, even writing in advertising, should be an act of love. 

The writer gives a part of his brain, his soul, his heart and his feelings to the reader. If he's careful with his words, and thoughtful and adept, he'll be giving the reader something worthy of the time he's taking.

I've felt that way since I write catalog copy for the Montgomery Ward catalog. 

If we in the ad industry tried to work that way, to think that way, to believe in that again, maybe we'd all be happier, more fulfilled and be better that our jobs.

--

BTW, on Monday I had an email exchange with a client. She's asked me to lend a hand editing some "substacks" she's writing. I've been a professional writer for 46 years. I learned some new things just this week, just from observing how the Economist does things. I'd rather learn from the Economist than from someone who calls themselves a content strategist.

For one, if the writing in the Economist isn't good, it doesn't get read and the writer gets fired or demoted. I've never seen accountability like that in anything that resembles an ad agency.

Here's my note to her:

I have an idea for your content--in whatever form it takes.

It's based on how The Economist is "serving" its articles.
I'm assuming there's a fair amount of overlap between

Economist readers and your UHNW (ultra high net worth)

constituency--even if your potential clients are maybe a little older.

The Economist seems to be offering "content" the way steak-houses
let diners order steaks. 6oz., 12oz., and "the belt-buster."

Here's an example below:

They also offer an app-based function called Espresso. The big news
in one-minute bites. 

Presenting your thinking this way shows a real respect for the reader.
You not only understand how time-pressed they are, you've edited your

copy accordingly. I betcha it would boost readership--and make a positive brand impression beyond the extra-engagement you'd get. (Yes, there's more work in doing this. But I'd bet the benefits would outweigh the time-cost.)