One Creative Moment is a daily email for founders, owners, and creators. You'll get insights, irreverence, and inspiration to help you build a better business & live a more creative life.
“If it sounds like writing, do it again” (maybe more for fiction, but I like it)
Actually, the quote is:
“If it sounds like writing … rewrite it.”
This quote comes from the late Elmore Leonard (the writer behind the book Get Shorty, which became a film in the '90s) and is aimed at improving one's efforts writing fiction.
But I think it has a very applicable crossover to business writing.
Whether it's on your website, in automated emails, or even in personal emails, I always advocate reading what you've written (or had written for you) aloud to see how it sounds.
If what you're saying makes your eyes roll back with boredom, or you run out of breath (or lose your place) trying to get through it, rewrite it.
I have a couple of tips and tricks to help solve the perennial "how do I make what I wrote sound like it was written by and for a human?" problem. And this one is by far the easiest and most accessible.
(I'll write about the others in upcoming emails ;)
Happy writing (and reading...and rewriting),
James
P.S. Yes, I read this email aloud (several times) before sending.
One Creative Moment
by James E. Turner
One Creative Moment is a daily email for founders, owners, and creators. You'll get insights, irreverence, and inspiration to help you build a better business & live a more creative life.
Not to be that “newsletter recommending” guy, having just yesterday drawn your attention to a new one I’m enjoying. But this has to be done and has to be done now. (I had meant to do it before the start date! But, life…) So I’m sharing this in case you would also find it interesting: Craig Mod’s latest pop-up newsletter, “The Return to Pachinko Road.” It’s, as Craig puts it, “…an 18-day pop-up walk, walking 600km from Kyoto to Tokyo along the Tōkaidō (“Pachinko Road”). Starting on May 14,...
Just read the second issue of a promising new newsletter from Finn McKenty. (I know him from LinkedIn, but am most intrigued by what he has to say about making YouTube work.) It included this painfully true quote: “… opportunities usually go to the people who are the most visible, not to the people who “deserve” them.” If you needed an extra boost to help you put yourself out there (or remind yourself why you’re doing it in the first place), there you go. There I go, too! Be seen, James
Think about the way your living space is set up right now. Has it always been that way? I’m guessing not. And yet, I was reflecting today that to our children, our kitchen/dining arrangement, for example, must seem permanent. Things that to them are the only way-things-can-be are, to us (Kayte and me), more like something we’re trying out “for now.” To them, this house is the seat and centre of tradition. To us, this is our suburban bungalow period. (Note: I’m not saying they’re wrong, nor...