I know the internet is run by cats and all, but I’m a dog lover.
I’m just naturally that way. Maybe it’s from when my brother’s cat did a 90 MPH run over the couch on my face. Or when my wife’s cat pooped in my Christmas present.
I can’t make something like that up.
And I’m a big enough person to admit that it’s me, not you, cats. As a species, you can’t be be trained, mostly, and you’re just too demanding of me, wanting me to hold my legs still so you can rub against them. What’s up with that?
Maybe that’s why I’m a web writer (stay with me). Writing for the web is a lot like training a dog.
Here’s what I mean…
-It’s Going To Be Messy At First Take a look back at my earliest posts. I’ve always been a writer, but I most definitely have not always been a web writer. “Text is messy as hell,” says content strategist Christina Halvorson. Maybe she was talking about new web writers. You never know.
-For Best Results, Use Comfortable Surroundings I can’t say that I started off liking my text editor, or even wordpress. I’m a Pages guy (insert Mac fanboy crack here). It took a while for me to get used to working, not just writing, in different formats. But now that I have, I can stare at a black page in pretty much any format and chew it up (get it? With the whole metaphor and everything?)
-Repetition, Repetition, and Something Else To be a writer, you’ve got to write. Don’t ever create a blog post that says, “Sorry for not posting in so long.” If you do, then the terrorists win. And in this case, when I say terrorists, I mean cats.
-Lots Of Treats, All The Time Writers need praise way more than they need criticism. And that’s going to come from yourself, not the masses. Sorry to break it to you that way. Don’t beat yourself up as a web writer. It’s just not worth it. Know how many blogs there are? 14 million or so. If your voice is important at all, it needs to be important to you. So don’t go hitting yourself on the nose with a rolled up newspaper (remember those?). You’d look dumb.
I’m brilliant for even coming up with this metaphor. My dog is 14, and isn’t trained at all. But he does everything I ask him to. I guess he’s pretty much trained himself.
Like most web writers.
Tags: Ben Curnett, blogs, content marketing, Copywriting, motivation, writing