Margie Dana

When the Scent Grows Cold

Scent A peculiar thing happens when a writing assignment is put on temporary hold once the writer’s already begun. The momentum is lost, and like a popped balloon, all the air goes out of the project.

Weeks or months later, when the job starts up again, the writer in a sense has to start anew. The mood has been broken.

The energy that initially fueled the assignment, be it through discussions with the client or research done online, has vanished, like the scent of a crime in an open field after a downpour.

Imagine dating someone you start to fall for – then he disappears into the blue for months. When he returns, it’s like starting all over. Hopefully, you can reclaim the magic.

The bigger the assignment and the longer the hiatus, the more likely this predicament will occur. Content quality suffers when writing assignments are characterized by fits and starts.

My Preferred 5-Part Blogging Process

Freelance blogging requires lots of reading and writing, but (thankfully for me) no arithmetic. I’ve developed my own blogging process. Here you go.

Discuss the topic with client. A phone conversation is preferred, as it lets me get all my questions asked – and answered – before I dig in. I need to understand what’s expected and who the audience is. I take notes as we chat.
Ponder the post. I think about the key points I want to make.
Do research. I take to the Internet to learn what I can about the subject, if I’m not familiar with it. This step is critical. I create a Word document just for this research, jotting down the URLs and key phrases or ideas that will be fodder for the post.
Ponder the post again. Looking at my client notes, my research notes, and my client’s website, I form the thesis in my mind.
Write. Now I’m ready to rock and roll. At this point, I know where I’m going with the post and have decided which points to make and when hyperlinks will help support my work. I suggest a few headlines, review my writing, and send it off to the client.

This works well for me. The research notes keep me honest and careful, and if the client wants to see them, I send them along. Some bloggers “dump” everything they know about a topic onto a clean Word document and whittle it down from there. I can’t work that way.

What’s your process?

Remember to Frame Your Blog

A great blog post includes an engaging intro and a final wrap-up. I call this one-two combo “The Frame.”

Every post makes one point. Use the guts of the post to state your position, identify the main issues, and then articulate your solution.

Within these paragraphs, you may choose to support your main point with a few links to other articles from third-party resources (experts, trade organizations, newspapers or other publications).

Strengthen your blog with a short introductory sentence or two to hit your readers between the eyes. Grab their attention. Make them want to read more. Then, when your argument is made in the body copy, bring it all home with a closing sentence that wraps it all up memorably.

This formula for a blog makes for a complete content package with no loose ends or unanswered questions from your readers.

So always bookend your blog post with one or two carefully crafted sentences at either end. The opener will set the stage, and the closer will bring your point home.

Are You Using Eye Catchers in Your Content?

Eyeball Think about what catches your eye as you read blog posts, newsletters, and other long-form pieces of content:

Color, visuals, headlines and subheads, white space, bold or italicized type, unusual typefaces, “chunked-up” copy

We scan and skim when we read a lot of copy these days, right? Especially with online content, we don’t lean back in our chair and settle down for a nice, long read of anything.

And we’re an impatient bunch. So format your content with elements that make readers stop and pay attention.

Don’t overdo it, or your piece will just look ugly and unprofessional. Here’s my two cents:

Color always attracts the eye, whether it’s in the design, type treatment or imagery.
Visuals are the first thing we notice.
Clever and catchy headlines draw readers in, like moths to a flame, while strong subheads help organize the copy.
White space frames your content. It can inject drama into a design, making the reader focus on the copy. It also acts as a visual aid to readers. And it’s soothing.
Type treatment Use bold or italics to set words or phrases apart. Choose a different typeface for your headlines to make them distinctive.
Chunked-up copy may be my personal favorite: I prefer shorter paragraphs to accommodate readers’ shorter attention span.

What eye catchers do you prefer?

This Is the Content a Panel Moderator Needs

There are debates in the air – can you feel it? Talk about slings and arrows…

All this talk about who’s moderating the presidential debates got me thinking about panel moderators.

I often moderate panels. Here’s the content I must have at my disposal when I do:

Names, titles, and bios of each panelist. If someone has a tricky name to pronounce, I have the phonetic spelling of that name as well, just to make sure I don’t botch it.
Short introduction. It never hurts to have your introductory remarks printed off and handy, plus the name/s of the event sponsors if applicable.
List of questions I’ll be posing. And then some. It’s standard to share the questions ahead of time with your panelists so everyone’s prepared. Always have extra questions handy as well. Sometimes you go through the prepared questions quickly and find yourself at a loss for words. Avoid this! Draft a lot of extra questions.
Copies of relevant articles if available. Often, the topic we’re covering is timely and/or controversial, and other journalists or experts have weighed in. I like to print copies of such content and have them with me. I highlight key passages on them so I can reference them quickly.
Attendee list. If you’re lucky, you’ll have received a list of audience members. When I get such a list, I print it and have it in front of me. Rule #1 of public speaking: know thy audience.

Having this information handy will ease your job as moderator and enhance your professionalism.

3 Reasons to Talk with Your Blogger

Whether your company’s blogger is an insider or a freelancer, you two need to talk.

As much as can be communicated about a new post by email, nothing works as well as a live conversation for us bloggers.

Here are my top 3 reasons why you two should talk:

Your voice matters. When I speak with you about why a post is so important to you and your market, I can literally hear the passion and understand your viewpoint. Often, a client says something – a word, a phrase – that nails it.
We can zero in on the one point your blog post should make. Make no mistake, there should be only one key point. If I don’t know exactly where I should be going with a post about, say, direct mail, who knows if I’ll nail it?
It saves time. A 10-minute conversation with you about a post helps me organize my thoughts and ask targeted questions as we speak. Huge time saver, so you’ll probably get your post delivered sooner.

A good blogger will prepare herself with questions ahead of that conversation with a client and take notes during it.

Don’t risk publishing a blog that misses the boat. Have a quick chat with your blogger every time.

Visuals can catapult your content

Images – sometimes a welcome relief from blah-blah-blah.

I admire visual artists and always have. My own talent for creating any sort of art form doesn’t exist; it’s that simple. Words are my thing.

Last Sunday I was perusing the NYT Style Magazine and came across a standing feature that always blows me away – The Illustrated Interview. Every interviewee for this particular feature draws his or her own pictures to answer a few questions. In the current issue, the artist interviewed is a young pop singer (is this redundant?) named Grimes. She drew her illustrations using a Wacom Cintiq tablet.

As far as interviews go, this unique interpretation is visually very engaging. It makes you linger over every drawing. (Maybe that’s just my envy talking.)

This is such a clever idea.

I would never have looked at this interview had it not been for the visuals. May it inspire all of us to use interesting visuals in our content whenever we can, even if we don’t create them ourselves. Use images anywhere they might catapult your content to a higher level of engagement.

Here’s to the artist in all of us.*

*And for your reading pleasure, here are some current stats on visual content that are pretty compelling.

Enewsletter vs. blog

When I launched Print Tip of the Week in 1999 (now called Print Tips), blogs didn’t exist in the mainstream. So my weekly communication was christened an enewsletter because it was – and still is – emailed.

That right there is the primary difference between a blog and an enewsletter.

A blog lives on the web, typically on your web site. An enewsletter may also find a home on your site (as do Print Tips and its sister, Everyday Content Tips), but its name is derived from its publishing channel: email.

There are other differences.

Your enewsletter may include news information about your business – your products, speaking engagements, maybe staff announcements.

Your blog would not include news. It’s your opportunity to share an idea, make a point, and enlighten your audience.

Here’s one thing I love about blogs: they live on the web, making them super easy to share. (Always have your social sharing buttons available on your blog pages.)

Here’s one thing I love about enewsletters: you push them out to your subscribers. As long as the content is good (relevant, well written, and of “Goldilocks length”), subscribers will look forward to receiving them. They may even forward them. They will share them socially if you’ve uploaded the content to your web site. Please do.

Could you email your blog posts to a list? Mais oui. It’s smart. You should also use social sharing and an RSS feed as well. This way, you also “push” your blogs. Otherwise, they’ll just sit there, hoping to “pull in” those eyeballs.

Write when the idea’s still shiny & bright

Sometimes I conduct phone interviews as part of a writing assignment. At other times, I take detailed notes (more like transcribing, actually) during a multi-day meeting, and then turn my notes into a newsletter.

In these situations, I’ve learned it’s best to draft my content right away – as in, within the next day or two.

Sound obvious? Well, I learned this lesson the hard way, by putting my notes aside after a phone interview and not starting to write the piece for a week or more.

Oh boy. Bad idea.

It’s a struggle to fully remember the actual conversation you had – even if you took copious notes. You might have typed every word. But once time goes by, you lose the freshness of the actual conversation.

Sure, you can still write your piece, but waiting too long will compound your effort. I’ve found that I forget the subtle nuances in a speaker’s tone or response if I let too much time elapse. The urgency, or basic “spark” of what was said, disappears.

It’s kind of like a light bulb going dim little by little. Best to capture the essence of phone conversations or presentations when they’re hot. Write your first draft right away. The quality of your content will be the better for it.

Commonly botched phrases

No one is immune from screwing up expressions from time to time – not even us writers. Sometimes these phrases make it into print (as it were). When I come across one, I wince in pain, or in the following case, laugh out loud.

In a recent news article about Curt Schilling getting fired from ESPN for a social media post, he was quoted as saying, “This latest brew ha ha is beyond hilarious.” I beg to differ. When I read it, it was hilarious. Of course he meant “brouhaha.”

Here are a few common phrases that people often get wrong:

Wrong: “For all intensive purposes.”

Right: “For all intents and purposes.”

Wrong: “It peaked my interest.”

Right: “It piqued my interest.”

Wrong: “One in the same.”

Right: “One and the same.”

Wrong: “At my beckon call.”

Right: “At my beck and call.”

Wrong: “I wait with baited breath.”

Right: “I wait with bated breath.”

Wrong: “He made us tow the line.”

Right: “He made us toe the line.”

So be careful when you write for publication. Check and re-check phrases if you’re the least bit unsure of the correct form.

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