WHEW! Lovin' My Life!

I've been busier'n a cat coverin'... Ooh, that's not lady-like at all, is it?

Hmm... Let's try this again...

I've been busy! Very, very busy!  Writing for clients!  I was going to take the weekend off, but if I do that I'll have a crush on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and...you get the idea!

Everybody I've served as a copywriter recently wants me to do additional projects for them--lots of them! And they're telling other business owners they know about me, so it has been crazy fun here.  I love what I do, so the more of it I have to do, the better I feel (and earn!), as long as I can beat all the deadlines and keep everybody happy by doing exemplary work.  So far this week, it seems I can do no wrong!  My clients are positively giddy, men and women.  It's a kick. It makes my day to make their day.

Today when I had a chance (between rain storms) I walked Laverne and Shirley (the goats). This is the second time in two days I've done that. They really love it.  It has been months since I've walked them outside their pasture because they have lots of room to roam now, including the neighbor's field, but it's just not the same to them, I guess, until "mom goat" (that's me) gets out there and walks and plays with them.  They follow me like puppy dogs all over the neighborhood. No leashes required.  It's a lot of fun and gets me out of this chair, too, which is a very good thing.

I'll be watching a relative's critters all week this week, morning and evening--stopping by to feed and water them and be sure they're A-OK!  The family is going to Disneyland and Arizona, so their cat and dog will need looking in on.  They live very nearby, so it's a breeze to do it for them...

Seven books were just delivered to me. I'm going to be ghostwriting a pet care book (probably a series of them, in fact) over the next couple of months for an animal advocate. I've owned several of these particular critters myself, so it's going to be a labor of love for me. I've written the introduction already; my client LOVES it.  I pray he'll love the rest as much as he loves the intro.  I was on a roll the night I wrote it--I surprised even myself!  

I must be getting better as a writer, huh?  You'd think, after 40 years, I'd just sort of hit my stride and do no better (or no worse) than I've always done but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think I've learned, finally, to get out of my own way when I dance with words. I advise everybody else to do that when they write but am not really sure I did it myself until relatively recently.  It's a hoot to feel confident enough about my abilities that I no longer feel the need to second guess myself as I'm sailing along. (Or, rarely, that is.)  I just go, go, go...and look back at it later to see what needs tweaking...only to discover that not a lot of it does!  It's a good feeling.

I wrote an ad for DOG FANCY that will appear for six months real soon, and I'll be writing an editorial for the magazine, too.  It seems 90% or more of my present clients right now are animal-centric. I'll be writing a chicken rearing and care e-book soon, too, for a new client.  Cock-a-doodle-do!!!  Welcome to the zoo!!!

Good Golly Miss Molly--I've Been BUSY This Week!

I pray this is the beginning of a never-ending stream of clients. (Join me, please!)

Recently I seem to be attracting the most-amazing repeat clients. They're keeping me busy and referring others to me.

I have rarely been as busy as a copywriter as I have the past ten days. I've made at least two thousand dollars. I needed it desperately--my estimated taxes are due April 15th and I was fretting about that just a little over a week ago.

God is faithful, always.  He always comes through.  The folks I'm serving are all Christians (though not all progressives)--they just came out of the woodwork and invited me to quote (or I spotted their projects and felt attracted to them).

I'm writing two animal-related books for clients, for starters, and I've been writing for home security and survivalist folks (not the nutty kind--professional folks who are trained to step in when first responders aren't available). So all of the work is interesting.

I also have a gig rewriting a press kit and a series of blogs written by a French travel writer (not a bad writer, but one who needs help getting the cadence and colloquialisms of the English language  right).

And I'm writing introductory packages for an inventor who just invented the most remarkable poo-picker-upper on the planet; he sent me one and I used it today.  He also has a patent for it. (See it here: http://poovak.com/) Goodness, it's beyond amazing!  I think it would pick up elephant droppings if the opening were large enough.

I have additional regulars who pop in unannounced at least once or twice a weekwith small need-this-as-soon-as-you-can-get-it-back- to-me writing tasks that take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour each (at $50/hour). It's fantabulous and wonderful!

And there are more; I just can't remember them all right now! All told (including my two other very part time, non-writing gigs, about 9 hours a week total) I've made real close to $4, 500 this month. That's pretty darned amazing.

BRAVO, WASHINGTON STATE! #3 Least-Corrupt State in the Union

Washington



> Overall Grade: B- (83%)


> Public access to information: B-


> Legislative accountability: B+


> Political financing: C+


> Ethics enforcement agencies: B-


Washington stands out among states for its exemplary level of transparency. In 1972, the state was the first to pass a Public Records Act, which is a series of laws intended to guarantee public access to public records of government bodies at all levels. The state has strict ethics laws and campaign disclosure laws, and an Open Public Meetings Act that requires transparency. The state’s judiciary are elected directly by citizens at all levels. State legislature committee meetings and floor action are open to the public and often featured on state television.



Read more: America’s Least Corrupt States - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2012/03/22/americas-least-corrupt-states/#ixzz1qLEIsuAa

EAR-resistible: Referred to a Specialist

My doctor has referred me to an ear, nose and throat specialist. He says my ear probably won't flush on its own; I have "glue ear." (Didn't know there was such a thing, but that's how I've been describing my ear for two weeks now, ever since it stopped draining clear fluid.)

He says I'll probably have to have those ear tubes (or whatever you call them) that wee ones get when they have frequent earaches and ear infections.  My Eustachian tube is impacted and whatever is behind my eardrum won't budge.  Don't know how soon I'll have this done, but I hear it's no biggy: it's done on an out-patient basis. They just numb my ear canal and poke a wee hole through the ear drums and insert a tube that allows the junk to extrude.  (Lovely description, huh?)  I'm looking forward to hearing again.  I'm real tired of hearing as though I'm underwater! And my right ear seems ready to "go underwater" too, so I need to get this done! Like... yesterday!  I'll call the specialist tomorrow if they don't call me by noon.  I'd love to get in there and get 'er done!

A Bit Under the Weather...Still!!!

Grrr!  I had an ear and eye infection two and a half weeks ago, so went to Urgent Care to get what turned out to be three medications for the problem. They helped both situations but my left ear is still plugged.

The doc told me to come back in a week if I didn't feel better.  I never felt bad, really: the ear infection didn't hurt even though I had a very slight fever and lots of ear drainage; but this ongoing clogged ear situation is driving me up the wall and making me feel a little off-balance, so it's time to return and see if I need something that'll address it. It's more than a little annoying: by the end of every day, it feels like it's just about to resolve itself, but it doesn't--and by morning we're back at square one: very, very plugged.  Grrr...  I'm tired of waiting for it to unplug of its own accord.

I think the outer ear infection may have become an inner ear infection (or impaction). My temperature remains normal, so that's good. Going to the doctor is not my favorite thing to do, but unless things turn around precipitously, I'll go again. It shouldn't take long if I can get right in... What a drag.

What Does a Copywriter Do?

WHAT DOES A COPYWRITER DO?       © 2012 by Kristine M. Smith


Consider the power of words when eloquently aligned. Words have inspired great works of art, terrible acts of war, and selfless acts of love. According to Genesis, God’s words alone created the universe and everything in it, seen and unseen.


As a business owner, speaker, coach, or entrepreneur, what kind of world are you creating with the words you’ve posted or spoken to let others know about you and what you can do for them?


Are you pushing a product or service at people and wondering why your conversion rate is laughably low?

Is your “target audience” not fully-understanding the rock-solid value of your offer?

If not, is it because you’re targeting them rather than transforming them into mini-you’s who “sneeze” your products and services virally because they’ve been transformed by what you’ve done for them?


The value of a professional copywriter can’t be calculated and should never be underestimated...but sadly, all too often it is.

Perhaps you consider copywriters to be paid product pushers, ad men and women, shills for the people they serve, undeserving of respect or wealth. Certainly there are those in the trade who will work on any project regardless of its value, just as there are vanity publishers who will publish trash because they’re in it strictly for the fees they can charge.


But good copywriters pick and choose the people and businesses they serve. Ethical copywriters won’t write false testimonials for start-ups, or a great sales page for an e-book that reeks. Great copywriters look high and low for projects they can invest themselves in 100% for people they respect and admire.


A great copywriter is a wordsmith, a transformer, a magician, a spellbinder.


A great copywriter dances with words, distills benefits into compelling, converting talking points, clarifies hard-to-understand technical papers.


A great copywriter builds brands, creates memorable slogans and taglines.


A great copywriter sells, tells, compels, and propels the people who are in need of your product or service.


A great copywriter knows how to approach your prospect and blow in his or her ear, how to create a little intrigue and romance.


A great copywriter knows that social media is no place to behave like a bull in a china shop. They’ve taken the book LIKEABLE SOCIAL MEDIA to heart and will not behave badly when writing in that realm.


Great copywriters almost never offer their services at bargain basement prices, even in this economy. If/when they do, it is usually out of the fullness of their hearts for causes or people they know and feel compelled to serve out of a commonality of purpose or an abiding friendship.


If you consider professional copywriters expensive, consider these facts:


Like many (if not most) of you, freelance copywriters are entrepreneurs.


We don't get paid vacations


We don't get paid sick days


We rarely get bonuses for outstanding work or holidays


We cover the full costs of any insurance plans we have


We cover 100% of the costs for our federal Social Security and other mandated plans


We don't qualify for unemployment if work doesn’t materialize


We live in an expensive economy


We must take into account the time it requires to find and quote on projects


Although freelance copywriters enjoy our work...sadly....enjoyment doesn't pay the rent!


The National Writers Union and other folks in the know suggest that professional copywriters charge $1 to $2 per word. (That's not a typo.)


Please Note: Because I usually serve start-up entrepreneurs and small businesses, I keep my rates as low as I possibly can because I know how cash-strapped most businesses are in this economy and I want to help--but without losing my shirt!


A lot goes into landing copywriting work (in both time and treasure). It takes (according to Malcolm Gladwell’s THE TIPPING POINT) 10,000 hours to attain proficiency and expertise in any realm. Some freelance writers (including this one) exceeded this exalted milestone before they turned twenty years old. (Air-breathers have to breathe; fish have to swim; writers have to write—the activity isn’t optional. What we do keeps us alive, inside and out.)


If you’ve read this far, you’ve passed the only test I’ll ever give you. I needed you to understand what you’re getting if you choose me to serve you. You’ll get my absolute best efforts based on years of study, practice, and experience—nothing less.


                                                       ##


Kristine M Smith is a freelance copywriter and the author of six (soon to be seven) books

Update on My Doings...

I've been able to help get two of my friends' books into the final stages of readiness for publication this month, so I feel good about that. I believe they'll both debut this month. They're both fellow Christians, retired and on Social Security, so I kept their costs "entry level copywriter/editor" low.  When the books are available, I'll point you to them and tell you about them. Stay tuned!


Tonight I watched part of ALI with Will Smith. It brought me right back to 1964 when I told Dad I wanted to accompany him to the Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston fight when he went to see it at the Seattle Coliseum (via special TV link). It all came flooding back:

Mom had to get me out of school early in the afternoon so I could go. We knew it wouldn't be an excused absence ("student wants to go see a prize fight") so she told me she would come by at 1:30 or so and I would tell her I wasn't feeling well, so she could take me "home" so I could get in the car and accompany Dad to Seattle.

Well, neither of us were (or ever would be) accomplished liars. When she arrived and the time came for me to feign "sickness," I did my darndest, but we both knew it wasn't going to fly...so we giggled and just skipped out!  No one seemed to notice.

Dad and I had dinner at the Space Needle in Seattle and then grabbed our spots at the Coliseum.  I remember thinking that Sonny Liston looked like a killer; he glowered at Clay with extreme malevolence; just looking at him looking at Clay scared me. I wondered how anyone could face that countenance without peeing his pants...or worse.  But I loved Clay's chutzpah: I believed he'd win. And as we all know, he did.

In fun critter news:

Jackie bought six chicks so we'll have fresh eggs somewhere down the road. If it works out well, she'll probably get more, but for right now, we want to make sure we can keep these ones going and growing.  So far, so good!  They're active, chirpy, clean-bottomed and altogether healthy-looking after five days of life in our possession. That bodes well.  (Before, when we had chicks as kids, we also had the hens that bore them to care for them, so this "foster parenting" is all new to us.)

Laverne and Shirley (goats) are girdling our fruit trees, eating the bark as far up as they can  in their pasture. Oh, joy. I'm glad we still have a few fruit trees OUTSIDE their pasture! 

Laverne and Shirley are fat as butterballs, so eating tree bark isn't due to lack of nutrition or the proper minerals (all of which I provide); I checked online to make sure that tree bark eating is just part of what goats do. Sure 'nuf!

What else?  Guess that's all for now. My head is still so stuffed that I'm deaf in my left ear and my head hurts when I bend over. I had a slight fever but that has begun to resolve itself, so I expect I'm on the mend.  Good thing, because I have an appointment to help someone write a brochure tomorrow...and an off-site gig later this week for several hours. I HAVE TO get back into the mix before I lose my shirt!

The Story of Me

About Kristine M. Smith



Take one shy third grader, introduce her to sentence structure and the art of storytelling then stand back. What happens next, and later, transforms lives and businesses.


By age eight, Kristine M. Smith was already a dyed-in-the-wool Roy Rogers fan. She watched every episode, begged her mother to buy every comic book.


At one point, exasperated by her daughter’s insistence (several times a week) to be sure to look for the next edition whenever she drove six miles to town, Kris’s mother told her, “They don’t make Roy Rogers comic books as fast as you want them. If you want more, you’re going to have to write them yourself.”


It was a revelation! “Sure enough, I could!” And she did!


Her grade school teacher was so impressed by her efforts that she read each story in class, embarrassing (and thrilling) the young author to her toes.


Extra credit—not a problem! Kris wrote. In fact, getting Kris to stop writing became an issue at home. She tore through chores like a tornado (with similar results) to get back to her pen and paper.


Her dad—never a reader—didn’t get it. He told her, “If you can’t build it or grow it, what good is it?”


He didn’t know that by the time Kris reached adulthood the Information Age and cable television would come along and that her “obsession” would, in an instant, become worth its weight in Ben Franklins. Neither did Kris. But she kept on plugging, kept on writing, because she couldn’t stop. Writing gave her the opportunity to say what she had to say. (Shyness kept her from speaking the words, so she wrote them.)


By junior high her English teacher was onboard. Kris’s family was farming, their income meager. When Kris's teacher told her she was a wonderful writer, Kris begged her, “Teach me how to be better!”


Her teacher replied, “I can’t; I’m not a writer. But I am a reader, and I know good writing when I see it.”


A few weeks later, the same teacher presented an issue of THE WRITER magazine to Kris; Kris’s name was on the white label. For the next two years, she devoured every issue, reading them from cover to cover…


By high school, Kris had reached what Malcolm Gladwell would deem (in his book The Tipping Point) “the threshold for excellence and expertise”: ten thousand hours of dedicated study and practice.


Actor DeForest Kelley flipped when Kris wrote an article about meeting him (her high school English teacher insisted that she send him a copy, much to her dismay). Kelley submitted her story to a well-regarded New York publisher. The editor wrote back saying she wanted to publish the piece in its entirety in their Christmas edition. (She didn't feel it was necessary to alter a single word.)


Needless to say, when Kelley wrote Kris to ask her permission to use the article, her parents had to peel her off the ceiling. To have her writing career officially launched by her favorite actor was light years beyond her wildest imagination.


During the next several decades Kris wrote freelance articles for MAINSTREAM, the official magazine of the company she served (The Animal Protection Institute of America) and newspaper, editorials, letters to the editor, and many other pieces. The income was meager (as befits a non-profit), the work not always literary—but by now she had all-but shed her shyness and began to write and offer presentations to grade and high schools and colleges about the many crises facing animals tame and wild in her capacity as Field Services Director of API.


Fast forward to reconnecting with actor DeForest Kelley in 1988; "De" and his wife Carolyn encouraged Kris to move from Tacoma, Washington to Hollywood. They felt sure she’d excel in Tinsel Town, first as an executive secretary and later as a screenwriter.


Problem: she was too good an executive secretary and too fearful of leaving the role to take a creative leap of faith…so she served as a secretary and eventually as a Hardware Lease Administrator at Warner Bros. Studios (Time-Warner) for eleven years before returning to Washington State in 2003.


But during her time in Hollywood, Kris kept writing. And when Mr. Kelley’s wife broke her leg just as he fell ill with cancer, “De” asked Kris to serve as his personal assistant and (eventually) as his caregiver until his death in 1999.


De also gave Kris his blessing to write a memoir about her long association with the Kelleys and so she did; in September 2001, DeForest Kelley: a Harvest of Memories debuted. It received no mass media coverage because Sept. 11 intervened; the country went into shock and “lockdown mode” for months: all available news sources were consumed by the horrific events of the day and its aftermath. And certainly Kris was in no shape emotionally to spearhead a book tour: she felt as kicked in the stomach by the events as everyone else did.


Five books have followed: Let No Day Dawn that the Animals Cannot Share (poetry and prose about the many animals, tame and captive wild, Kris has known) ; Floating Around Hollywood and Other Totally-True Tales of Triumph (a book of humor about being a “floating secretary” in Tinsel Town); The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer, Friend (other fans’ reminiscences about the powerful effect Kelley had on their lives and careers); Purposeful Christianity; and Serval Son: Spots and Stripes Forever (a cautionary true story about what it’s like to own—and be owned by—a wild cat for seventeen years).


In January, 2007 Kris had the good fortune of being hired as a junior copywriter for an on-hold company. She fell in love with copywriting (which surprised her!), quickly wowing the group and earning Employee of the Quarter during the last two quarters she served the company.


In January, 2008 Kris established a copywriting business herself, quickly earning scores of kudos from delighted clients.


2012 is her fifth year as a full-time copywriter and editor.

My Copywriter Card...