Welcome back from the weekend!
First off, I want to thank Corey, our Associate Content Strategist over here at ideaLaunch, for helping fill in writing the Round-up for me while I had some personal matters to attend to—and for her Leonardo Dicaprio shout out, too, of course. I could again talk about how important guest posts are, but I think now that you’ve seen how awesome both Ryn G. and Corey were at attacking this Round-up, I think the benefits speak for themselves.
The 99 Percent is your writing therapist. This week, it has been working to diagnose and provide remedies for the Fear of Finishing, based on notorious barriers to completing your work. And since I was addicted to those online personality tests in college as a time-waster, this is of particular interest to me. I do, however, just want to say that I’m really not a mean person. You can submit to our editorial team. Nevermind #4.
Though I have to admit, one of the things that bothers me most (and is often cited by clients) is when writers put up a barrier to revision requests—emotional or otherwise. Editors may seem nitpicky, but it’s often because they are closer to understanding to the client wants—speaking directly with them from an overall project perspective. And, look, nobody is perfect. Revisions are meant to tailor the writer’s work, save time in the future, point out recurring grammatical issues, and eventually grow both the editor’s and writer’s potential. And, you know, delivering content the client wants and pays for.
So I guess, yeah, I agree with this post about “dancing naked” (?) when writing. Of course, put yourself out there. It’s going to be tough to hear feedback when you’re so “exposed,” but feedback you are going to get. This is real life, guys. And in my experience, people would rather work with a writer who is amenable to revision requests and this feedback than a higher quality writer who consistently puts up unnecessary fights and believes he or she is always in the right.
Of course, everyone makes mistakes. Newbies who are still learning the ropes often don’t even know they are making these mistakes, and someone is going to have to tell them. Here is a compiled list of the twelve most common mistakes new bloggers make, courtesy of For Bloggers, By Bloggers, that can do just that.
Number 6 discusses fonts. I’ll admit this: I love fonts. It’s one of my interests on Facebook. I could spend hours—and often did when I freelanced—picking out the perfect font for a design project, looking through sites like Dafont.com. And somewhere down the line (or yeah sure, like a block down the line) someone had to tell me, “Enough already with the cracked, distressed bubble font followed by the old-timey typewriter.” (But that’s signature Cait!). It’s not readable. (Feedback again!) There is a way to keep the funk alive with sans serif body text. Work it.
But, wow, take a look at Mashable’s video slideshow of some of the funkiest stories using just animated typography.
Back to this notion of “stories.” As a writer with a creative writing background at first, I totally dig Copyblogger’s idea of marketing with stories, with one major caveat: It has to be executed very well. And also, I’m not sure if I read/saw the same Beauty and the Beast as this writer did, because I’m pretty sure the moral of the story wasn’t not to judge a man by his ugly, but that it’s OK to imprison and verbally abuse a young girl because she’ll probably end up loving you for it. (Though the candlestick totally lit my fire in his epic “Be Our Guest” cabaret.)
We love feedback too! Please post any thoughts or relevant links in the comments section, and maybe we’ll feature any links in next week’s Round-up!
