I'm Done and Back!

whoo hoo! I'm back in the world of copywriting... LOL Well, I never really left, but I was preoccupied for awhile with the nanowrimo project. And I finished it. Yay!

For those of you who don't know, Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November people from all over the world commit to writing 50,000 words for that month. It signifies writing a novel, but most novels are 90-120,000 words.

The true purpose is to challenge ourselves and to also develop the habit of turning off our 'inner editor' and write at speed without editing as we go along. Forget about the typos, the misspellings, not-so-perfect word choices, punctuation, etc. After we're done writing, then we can go back and correct those things.

Most people do this very well. Some people are voracious typers and get their 50,000 within a day or two. Can you say carpal tunnel? LOL I'm a fairly fast typer, but my comfortable speed allows me to type about 1,000 words an hour. Eight hours a day is the most I'll type for - I make sure to get in plenty of rest breaks, as my hands are very important to me. (Not to mention my eyes need the break too.)

For my writing, I can still get that 1,000 words per hour out, but I cannot turn off my internal editor. My editor is already trained to follow me. Now, of course, when a bigger editing thought comes along, I will often just make a note on a slip of paper to go back and fix something later if I can't stop with my current momentum.

That internal editor is important for the copywriter. Bob Bly of bly.com has been finding interesting examples where people have turned off their internal editor while going with a thought.

My internal editor is constantly on the go. We've come to an understanding where my editor gets to do her job and I get to keep my speed up. That took practice to develop. For me, the practice came from being heavily involved in a writing critique group for fiction writers. I would critique five to ten stories and chapters a week. It was great training. Where I would need to revise a story three or four times before it was ready, I started only needing one revision pass. My internal editor starting working at the same time I wrote.

This has carried over to copywriting. When I started writing sales materials, my internal editor joined right in and accompanied me.

So, now my internal editor (IE) and I are back, and we will work on bringing you some more goodies in the promised line up of articles.