Writing is easy.

That very popular quote (for us writers, at any rate) has often been wrongly attributed to Ernest Hemingway… he actually died long before the earliest known version of it.

Back in 1946, a sportswriter by the name of Paul Gallico (you would know him for his novel-turned-movie, The Poseidon Adventure) described the agony of writing in his book, Confessions of a Story Writer: ‘It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader.  If you do not believe in the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your mind, strength, and will, if you don’t feel joy and excitement while writing it, then you’re wasting good white paper, even if it sells, because there are other ways in which a writer can bring in the rent money besides writing bad or phony stories.’

Three years later, a prominent American sportswriter named Red Smith, when asked about the difficulty of turning out a daily column replied, ‘Why, no.  You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.’ 

(What is it with sportswriters I wonder?)

But I get it.  From my fingers pour forth words.  Words that may flow freely onto my keyboard but nonetheless, words I have to reach deep inside me to get.  I have to imagine myself as my reader, get into what they are thinking, what they want, how they feel, and relate to that, write to that.

The same with copy I write for you, my clients.  During our briefing, we will discuss your target market.  What makes them tick? What are their mindsets, their values? Where do they hang out? What drives them?  What turns them away?  What are their dreams, their deepest desires?  Their fears?  

Tap into those and you’ve got it made. 

Now all you’ve got to do is reach them. Solve their problems.  

Then they’re yours.

You can do this.  Ask me how.