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Being able to elegantly SAY WHAT YOU MEAN isn’t always an easy task— —particularly when you’re too busy for petty sh*t like showers, your stress hormones are being IV dripped into your veins at the rate of a class five river rapid, your head is doing Beetlejuice-style 360s as you juggle fourteen and a half clients (and their really cute idiosyncrasies—wink), and as a darling bonus, your three children are pounding their fists at the dining room table threatening to call child protection services if you don’t get

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His name was Jackson. Once, I didn’t wash my hands for two whole days after he handed me a softball in gym class. When he wasn’t loing, I’d stare at him as if he were an Grecian god, made of chiseled gold and unicorn sweat—which, now that I said it out loud, is revolting.  But naturally, when I did happen to notice him glance in my general direction, I’d feign complete indifference and stare anywhere BUT  his general direction, sigh, roll my

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“Someday, I’m going to drop dead, and you’re not going to know how to co squat.” She said it at least once a week. Maybe . I’d always snubbed my nose at the kitchen; at the trout heads and ground beef balls, the fresh-picked parsley and the pasta fazool.  She was always loing for opportunities to teach me how to co so I didn’t “end up serving my future family that Spaghettio’s crap,” but I know now that what she

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You know that moment when you’re nonchalantly cradling your mother’s urn in the elevator on your way to your apartment, and suddenly the elevator halts to a stop and 5 other people decide to get on, and you sort of panic because you don’t know if they know that you’re carrying A DEAD PERSON, so you quickly think you should make a je about it in case they DO know, to relieve any awkwardness, because you’re good at making jes in

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There’s a lot of horse shit going around the internet these days about “writing from the heart” and eliciting emotion in your readers/audience/customers/landlords. Okay, so not landlords. And you get it. You know it’s important. Because nobody wants to buy from a faceless mime. But what you don’t know is how to actually do it. In your best attempts, you end up with something that still feels generic, forced, trite and/or overly earnest. You write things like, “Live a life

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I’m not a badgerer. Except, when I am. Like when the light is left on in the bathroom, for instance. Or those people who leave hunks of bread on their plate and then PUT IT INTO THE SINK instead of scraping it into the garbage, so by the time I find it, it’s a mushy pile of yeast vomit. (Who ARE those people?) Or those other prodigies who insist on driving in the left lane–while PEOPLE ARE ACTIVELY PASSING THEM

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I’m often asked: What’s the best way to make an emotional connection with your writing? The answer, of course, is obvious: Talk badly about every single one of your neighbors (we can all relate)…and use a pen name.  Kidding. But I do get asked this question a lot. And my answer is always the same. The best way to make an emotional connection with them through your writing… …is to make an emotional connection with yourself, first.  (Do not go

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I’m about to cry. I’m about to cry because I am so filthy proud of one of my former copywriting students. When wrapping up our last conversation on writing take-’em-to-their-knees product descriptions, I left her with a challenge:- Lo around your room. The first three items you see? Sell them to me. The rationale, of course, is that if you can learn to effectively sell the most commonplace items, you can sell anything. For our purposes we’re talking about selling through words,

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If you want to stand out, feel fresh, appear interesting and get noticed… …then you’ve got to use language that stands out, feels fresh, is interesting and gets noticed. This is common sense, but of course, it’s easier said than done. It’s tempting to use the first words that come to your mind, but usually? Those are the last words that’ll make you stand out in anyone else’s. This is why good copywriting is so important. The cutesy, overused, cliché phrases

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Sometimes, you stare at the screen. And you stare at the screen. And then you go get a bagel. And then you stare at the screen. *whips out nail file* *stares at cuticles* *stares at screen* *stares at cuticles* *wonders how many dead skin cells fall into keyboard during average workday* And then you tell yourself you’ve had enough. You’re going to get down to business. You make a stern face. You furrow your eyebrows. You turn off Spotify, and

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What if I told you I could sell anything in one paragraph or less? (Stop glancing skeptically at the screen. I can see up your nose.) You know what kind of paragraph I’m talking about–the sorely neglected, overloed and undervalued product description. *cue tambourine and this song* Product descriptions have the power to make or break you. (Right up until you’re bre.) By make or break you, I mean they can influence sales so much that you’ll either be in

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Lazy sentences BOTHER ME. They bother me because it’s not really the sentence being lazy–it’s the person who wrote it. And if that person happens to be a business owner who’s trying to convince me to spend my hard-earned, sweat-soaked, time-drenched money with them? They better demonstrate that they actually WANT MY BUSINESS. Want it enough that they’ll actually think about the message they’re sending me. Through their sentences. Through their words. Through each and every carefully placed motherfucking punctuation

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I’m going to tell you a little secret. It’s not a dirty little secret, but it might as well be. The secret is this: The key to selling your stuff? Isn’t about the size of your list. (That’s what she said.) In fact, it isn’t about a lot of the things you’re worried that it might be. The key to selling your stuff is actually a lot simple: You have to learn to talk about your stuff the right

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::  When I first started having sex, I worried I wouldn’t be sexy enough–and that I’d be a sore disappointment. ::  When I worked in advertising sales, the first time I ever had to do a nation-wide cold-calling contest…I was so wracked with nerves, I sat at my desk shaking, sipping vodka from a thermos. ::  There was a point in my life when I was so self-conscious, that anytime I talked, I was certain the other person was wishing

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