What’s on the iPod: Into the Dark Unknown by Holcombe Waller
TGIF. It’s been a busy week, and I’ve accomplished much. I saw two potential gigs disappear because we couldn’t come together on price, but there wasn’t any lack of work to fill in the gaps. Today, I’m working a few hours, then heading to Connecticut for an art exhibit of a deceased family friend.
I was digging around a few forums and blogs this week, and one thing stood out: some people are damn good at sending their careers up in flames. If it weren’t so prevalent, I’d have thought that these were just one or two clueless souls who had much to learn about business and professional behavior.
Alas, the numbers are much, much higher.
Maybe it’s just me, but there are some things you just don’t do — in public or amid client dealings. Here are a few I’ve seen done in abundance:
Shameless bragging. You’ve seen it on blogs.You’ve seen it in marketing pieces. You’ve read it in comments sections. Some people just can’t stop telling the world how special they are. Why this doesn’t work: People stop listening. Plus if you’re your own loudest cheerleader, people tend to think you don’t need them at all.
Awful writing. From writers. We all make mistakes. Blogs are indeed a more informal way to communicate, but that doesn’t mean we don’t pay attention to the rules. If writers interchange “then” for “than” (my pet peeve), string together unrelated ideas, or write something so incoherent that only the writer gets it, let’s hope their clients are even worse at grammar and punctuation.
Content heavy on the “I.” You know you’re in for an ego joyride when the main pronoun in nearly every post is “I.” Sure, sometimes it’s necessary to convey a story in the first person, but if it’s used as a marketing tool, guess what? The focus is now on the wrong person. No one cares what “I” has going for him/her. They care about what “I” will be doing for “you.”
Endless promotion. Don’t you just get sick of the Twitter peeps or the bloggers or emailers who cannot shut up about their products or services? I remember one friend (she’s still a friend) who sent me so many marketing emails in a week that I hit the unsubscribe button after just four days.
Horrible titles. You don’t have to go to Journalism school to understand that a title longer than seven words is too much. Yet I’ve seen (and I bet you have, too) book titles that stretch on for days and blog titles that wrap around into two lines or more. If it can’t be narrowed down to fewer words, it’s not a focused piece. Period.
Mixed metaphors. I read something recently that created the image of trying to start a tractor under water. Obviously the writer wasn’t trying to convey that (I think), but it was a case of shoddy writing or someone too in love with their own words to edit themselves.
How are you seeing writers or other freelancers ruining their images? What kinds of offenses do you think are harmful to the reputation?
2 responses to “6 Ways to Kill Your Writing Image”
There's prominent novelist I used to love who, after a tremendous amount of success, apparently decided she didn't need an editor. Subsequent books nearly doubled in length and her once tight writing lost focus. I stopped reading her work. A lot of others must have stopped, too, since she's still writing but I don't see her name on many best sellers lists anymore.
One of my oldest friends is an endless bragger. While it works in the short term by garnering the attention she craves, it always backfires when people realize it's a smokescreen. Her pretensions and desperate need to be the center of attention is one-sided and exhausting for others to endure. I keep telling her she's much more likable as her real, fallible self, but she keeps building this artifice she thinks will impress people who don't know her. That same desperation comes through in business.
The one good thing about that friend is knowing I never want to behave like that. Life would be more interesting as a wallflower – at least they're mysterious.
I think part of what writers sometimes forget is that social media venting is far-reaching and permanent. It sometimes feels like there's no safe space to do anything any more, and we all need to be able to vent.
I've bitten my tongue at least a dozen times in the past few days,wanting to go off about a few things, but first of all, it's Mercury Retrograde, so we'll all at communications cross purposes, and second, if I take a breath and step away, I bet it won't seem so bad!
Sometimes, I think our subconscious urges us to go up in flames because we've kept silent too long instead of effectively communicating early enough and in a way that could have alleviated the problem. It's sort of like the explosion is a relief in the short term, when in the long term, it's usually not the best choice.