What does your magic ritual when you are writing a copy?

When I actually write the first draft, I put hands-to-keyboard as soon as I wake up. Before coffee. Before dressing. After pee-pee.

That way, with half my brain still sleep-fogged, I seem to get the words to just flow out of my flying fingers.

Editing comes later, when my whole amazingly-intelligent brain [yeah, sure!] is in full throttle.

Dot

PS - I often wake early, like 3 am or so, and do my writing for 2-3 hours. Then it's back to sleep.

Long Live the Freelancer's Work Schedule!!

I get my coffee, check my emails, Facebook status updated, then I start (still in my pjs, of course. Or as we call it at home, the "office uniform". HA!)

I put my hands on my keyboard, close my eyes, and "become" my client's customer. Everything about them. Their clothes, shape, height, smell, did they shave this morning?, everything.

Then I open my eyes, and the words spill out.

Unless its my own sales letter - in which case I spend most of my time researching, worrying, rewriting, and very harshly critiquing what I've written. HA! (What's up with having more trouble writing for yourself than for others?)

I like to write in the evening when my stomache is full and don't have anything to do but just write, write and write.

Ross has a point.

Many creative writing teachers (and copy is, I believe, creative
writing, just disciplined creativity) recommend writing in the same
place at the same time every day. The theory is this entrains
your nervous system to drop into creative writing mode.

Now, as far as putting the information in your brain, the research
part - I spend a lot of time thinking and reading and scribbling
notes and drawing pictures when I'm working on copy... but
sometimes I just write.

At some point you have to rely on your gifts and skills and
just sit down and give it your best shot. I usually feel
underprepared when I actually sit down to write copy -
I want to dive back in and read three more books and so
forth - anything to avoid actually doing the ad itself.

It's sort of a game to get myself to write in a focussed
way... and I only write well in perhaps 30 minute bursts
and then I have to get up and goof-off, make some
tea of play the accordion or something for awhile. This
refreshes my batteries and I have some more good words
when I come back to the computer.

I get genuinely fatigued after about 4 hours of working
on copy and I put the writing aside and work on other things.
My creative muscles get weary - because writing copy is
not something I've got to a sort of Zen-point with yet -
because I haven't yet read every single book on copywriting
and copied every great ad and... well, you get the idea.

Ultimately, if you want to write; songs, novels, sales copy -
you have to develop some sort of way of "sitting for ideas".

Jack Foster's book about getting ideas is quite good. He
was an advertising copywriter for 35 years or something.

Still - there's the discipline of knowing formats and power words
and little tricks of the trade you can plug-in in lieu of real
creativity... and sometimes you get a better idea when
you see the sort of rote ad you put together and think
"Oh, here's something I just thought of that would say this
better, or have a tonality better matched to the character
of the reader's inner dialog for this particular market" - and
off you go creating something new out of building blocks -
words and phrases you learned from other writers - that
are quite old and well-worn...

... and then maybe you get so you can do this 5 days a
week and make some good ads and not run-out of juice -
and you can call yourself an ad-man or ad-woman.

There's a lot to it, but the core is simple - not easy, but
simple.

It's good to start writing once we are relaxed and full of energy.. What I do is to have a short exercise. just 10-15 minutes to change my mood and boost my blood circulation so that once I started working, everything will work fine :-)

This piece of advice will always help you write good copy.

Tell customers how your product solves their problems.

Answer their questions and they'll buy from you.

Hi Guys and Gals (again),

Picking up on the "get writing as soon as you awaken" technique, I've just been reading an interview of the late, great Gary Halbert and he said he used the very same technique, too!.

What's more, he said Dan Kennedy also uses the technique - mentioned in my previous post - of getting your subconscious to write the letter, whilst you sleep.

We could be on to something BIG.

Warmest regards,

Paul

Jack's comments are interesting and strike eerily close to home for me.

As a former editor and writer for several Larry Flynt Publications, I can say that if you can't squeeze out good copy from 9 to 5, you just ain't a pro. Freelancing allows for wacky schedules or routines, but you have to respect deadlines, client requests for on-site work, etc.

That said, I've jumped out of bed from a dead sleep to jot down a headline. Bolts of inspiration striking are the direct opposite of a routine.

When I get a big assignment or decide that I'm going to do a project of my own the ideas start flying (if it's my own project it's likely they've been bouncing around in my head for some time). Sometimes I take notes but mostly I just let the possibilities flow for awhile. I like to use the story format when possible but it's not always the best way to go. Even so, I don't come to that decision consciously.

After I've thought for a spell and made notes I just sort of let it all go and envision the outcome I want. It's not like that's really a hard thing to do because the outcome I see is always going to be a compelling piece that grabs the reader and keeps him moving toward the call to action. When I talk about the outcome, what I really mean is that I expect the hook, the angle and just the right perspectives to simply present themselves without a whole lot of conscious effort.

Then I just let it all go, forget it. And usually within 24 hours, but often sooner, I find myself at the keyboard tapping away. I'm literally not thinking but just doing a massive data dump. Sometimes it comes in the form of a story and other times it's more of an information piece with little vignettes interwoven. I might actually get 3000 or more words down in the first sitting. During this time I do very little editing or rereading, it's all about getting the main stuff out. There's plenty of time to shape it later.

Ideally, at this point I'll print and read it over quickly and make minor corrections and maybe jot some down some notes. Then I let it go for a day or two. I find that the longer the rest period, the better the final stuff is but I don't always have the luxury of a long layover.

There was a time when I felt guilty for not having my butt in the writing seat during working hours but with experience I discovered that my mind was still very much immersed in the project even though I wasn't working the keys. But now I just instinctively know when to start typing and it works really well for me. I've decided that the finished copy is already there and my subconscious will deliver it if I just get my conscious mind and ego out of the way.

I think it all comes back to the initial thought of sort of meditating on the final outcome up front and trusting that an unknown source or force will deliver it. And it does. Once the copy takes shape and proceeds upon a logical path I find it easy to add stuff and take stuff out that isn't working.

This is truly the hard part because as many of you know, we often hate to 'kill our children.' What I mean is I often become so enamored with something I find really clever when I first put it down and later realize it doesn't really fit. Ugh, I hate when that happens! During this time I might jump out of bed at 3:00 AM with just the right passage or bit I needed earlier in the day. Crazy.

During a major project like this I still do a lot of writing that isn't at all related to the main one. There's always stuff to write. I really love creating content as well as writing copy. I know a lot of people feel that you either do one or the other but I don't necessarily agree. Back in the early part of this decade I wrote a pretty decent ebook on self publishing physical books based on my own experience publishing my own stuff.

When I was finished I was too dumb to know that an ebook writer wasn't supposed to be a copywriter so I wrote the sales page. That copy converted at 4% and though I haven't lifted a finger to promote it in more than six years, I still see a sale every now and then (God only knows how because the sales page has been down since 05) and get some nice affiliate sales on an upper end marketing course I mentioned in the book. Then I wrote another ebook followed by a sales letter that converted at nearly 8%.

Still, I see myself more as a content writer but still love to write sales copy. And I think I do a decent job at it because I just let it flow from within without sweating it too much.

I shower. I feel that my mind is fully alert and ready to turn out ideas whenever I do so. But before that I need to eat my breakfast. When my tummy is empty, so is my brain.