Category: Copywriting

5 Steps To Get Ready For Proprioceptive Writing

Posted by Nasph22 in Copywriting

     

You’re probably thinking this is the calm before the storm, and you will probably be right. When thinking about proprioceptive writing you have to be ready for whatever your mind wants to throw down onto the paper infront of you. Here are the top five things you need to do in order to yield maximum results out of minimum effort when it comes to proprioceptive writing.

#1. Everyday, spend some time amongst nature. It could be anything from taking a stroll into your neighboring woods, in a nearby park, or even your backyard. Change and vary your visit to parks, or wherever you choose to be, and savor your time retuning yourself to your greatest teacher. The idea is to soak in the calming effect of our natural world radiating all around us when we live close to it or better still, amidst it. Since city dwellers are losing this vital connection in their lives, they experience an increasing sapping of energy. Absorb and communicate with nature around you. All this may sound over the top or holistic to the inexperienced, but any nature-lover will tell you how communicating with nature actually gets you in touch with a higher power.

#2. Now coming to the writing. Each day, or as many days a week you can afford, set yourself into a quiet corner where you will be uninterrupted for about 45 minutes.

#3. During this time, your room should be kept dark and you can choose to play any recording of natural sounds (such as the sounds of spring or birds). It is better to choose a fully charged player with a tape or CD with an uninterrupted run of 45mins or more.

#4. Set the mood. Remember to keep the room dark save for a sole candle you can light and place at your desk or writing table. Sit comfortably at your desk. Now, as you settle into the atmosphere and music, let the music breathe into you. If you have no taste for classical music or the extremely soothing sounds of nature, keep looking for new age music that you like. There is a surprising range available these days.

#5. Now, start absorbing the music by closing your eyes and taking slow but steady breaths. Remember, the breaths should be very deep. Each breath should come from deep inside your stomach, and ideally there should be intense contraction and release of your abdominal muscles. People who follow these steps before the actual writing have been reported to feel and enjoy an increased sense of shutting off of the outward world as though a curtain is raised into the inner recesses of our mind. Take about 20 breaths. If initially you feel a quagmire of thoughts cloistering your mind, don’t worry. As your brain regularly settles itself for reception of a rush of oxygen in the calm, it will settle down on its own. It is said that on an average most people tend to suffer from a definite state of shallow breathing or decreased reception of oxygen.

Now, settle down to the main task at hand—the writing. Following these settlement techniques you will not only find greater mental calm and well-being but also physical endurance and vigor! So enjoy them to the bits!

Always make sure you allow time for your work to be proofread though. You need to have a clear head before you take a look at your work and ploughing straight into proofreading your work will only cause you to miss things that your brain doesn’t recognise. A professional proofreader can make all the difference get a supaproofreader.

Resources: Nick Sanders is the owner and founder of Supaproofread.com, an online proofreading and editing services company, specialising in manuscript proofreading and editing services. You should visit them if you are looking for proofreading copyediting

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Ending Your Writing Well , A Guide For Writers

Posted by Nasph22 in Copywriting

     

When it comes to a highly cognitive and self-revealing writing practice, psychologists suggest that it is best to enjoy and limit yourself to a pithy 25 minute writing session per day and no more, at least not in this method. So here are some ways you can wrap-up—by giving answers to the basic proprioceptive questions:

a) When coming across any unanswered underlined words or phrases (such as “mother” or “having a pet” or whenever a question pops into your mind ask, “What do I mean by _____?” Give a short briefing in a few lines or words since now is not the time to give all the answers, ask yourself again in the next writing session. This is how you will slowly be able to tap your mind and discover buried secrets.

b) Next, ask yourself “How or what do I feel now?” Again, keep a short recording of your exact feelings. Just find the exact word or phrase related to your truest feeling. Again, never be judgmental. Whether it’s shame or guilt or a bag of mixed emotions, just write them down!

c) Here you will ask “what larger story is this article a part of?” Most probably, this is initially going to be a mixed experience of confusing thoughts racing through your mind with greater undertones of something more specific, as with childhood experiences or the loss of a loved one. Generally, we relate to things that have affected us most emotionally, but as we go on with more writing practices, our confusions settle down and often enough we relate to a specific incident or experience. Whatever writing stage you might be at, think it over a little, and find the larger story that your mind first settles for itself.

d) Ask yourself, “What ideas come up for future writing from this stage?” Then record them, and when you come back to writing the next time, look into those ideas for future exploration. Put a few words or expressions you may find to give you adequate information for the future, and close your writing there.

Neatly pin-up your pages, but one point to remember here is that loose sheets are always preferred as they lead to maximum unleashing of thoughts. Keep a file especially for this purpose, and keep your sheets in chronological order.

Do not start up a writing session looking just at the sheets. You can look through them when searching for inspiration and ideas for creative input, not meant for other purposes. It is only after about a month of proprioceptive practice that you should look through your file and scan it for unanswered questions, and unravel concepts for something more complete and creative, such as a plot for a short story, a monologue or even a novel! Use your personal experiences, plots and twists to mold the real characters in your life, revealed through your writing, and create a great story with a character sketch at the center. Over time, you will experience unbounded sense of freedom and energy with a higher sense of confidence and well-being. If you have followed the proper regimen, trust me, you will feel the difference!

The most important thing when you finish your writing is to have your work proofread and edited. Having a professional editor look through your work will mean that no mistakes are made when you publish it.

Resources: Nick Sanders is the owner and founder of Supaproofread.com, an online proofreading and editing services company, specialising in manuscript proofreading and editing services. You should visit them if you are looking for manuscript editing

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10 Top Tips In Style & Mechanics Of Legal Writing

Posted by Nasph22 in Copywriting

     

You’ve probably been baffled by all of the different texts and articles telling you how to write and in what way in the legal community. One source telling you one way and another leading you down another route, well below are the top ten tips to adapt your style and meaning of writing if you are writing for the legal community:

1. Always write short sentences because they are better than long ones. Remember that the topic sentence is the first sentence in each paragraph.

2. Do not use the passive voice because passive voice verbs are used without a subject and hence give the impression that you are not sure about it yourself. Moreover, they lack the punch. This means that the sentence “Donald did it” has a more impact than “the theft had been committed”.

3. Your writing should be like your speech: simple, direct, unpretentious. Think about the flow of logic. Never try and write like the courts because Judges write badly - like most other legal writers. However, avoid contractions (don’t use “don’t”), slang, and jokes — even if you talk that way, because the use of them opens up a certain amateurish aspect in writing. Never use pretentious legalisms such as “the case at bar” or “the instant case”. Call it the Angelina case. The use of long words should be avoided when short ones will do.

4. Do not try and sell too hard. If you cannot persuade, do not bludgeon. Avoid using violent adjectives.

5. Have the courage to be dull if this is the price of being clear. If your ideas are interesting, they will carry the paper far better than a turn of phrase. Legal writing is essentially technical writing so do not try and be verbose. Suspect the use of the fine phrase or the fancy word. Use the same word to express the same meaning and use simple sentence structure.

6. Always be specific. Instead of “in recent years” try, “since 1980″.

7. If you are using a specific tense then stick to it. Do subjects hold, or have they held? I do not care, so long as they only do one of those things. Of course, tenses can be used to reinforce a temporal sequence: courts had begun, developments ensued, the result will be.

8. I really believe in the use of a comma, whatever form of writing it may be. I believe that the use of a comma is very important in legal writing because legal writing is after all a form of technical writing. A penultimate comma works like this: “The four factors that affect good writing are lucidity, strong belief, construction, and attention to detail.” The last item in this list is “attention to detail”; without the comma after “construction” it would be unclear whether the final clause, joined with and, was one item or two (maybe the author cannot count and there are really five items on the list?). The comma makes it clear.

9. Try and avoid the use of “etc.” Using that is a crime.

10. If one wants to use quotes one can use them but should not probably more than one every five or ten pages unless doing close textual analysis of a particular case, statute, or regulation, in which case it may be essential to quote it at greater length. Remember that the average reader SKIPS the inset quote–so you need to provide a little summary of it afterwards which will allow.

Remember that it is always best to have a professional proofreader take a look through your work, checking that there are no mistakes, hiccups or grammatical errors when you submit it. Least you will want is your reputation damaged by having a huge mishap in your work that everyone else has noticed but you haven’t.

Resources: Nick Sanders is the owner and founder of Supaproofread.com, an online proofreading and editing services company, specialising in legal proofreading and editing services. You should visit them if you are looking for a professional proofreading service

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Introducing Proprioceptive Writing, Steps For Writers With Purpose

Posted by Nasph22 in Copywriting


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The proprioceptive mode of writing was discovered by eminent psychologists to help people overcome emotional blocks, unravel deep-buried secrets and heal them. The general idea was that as a person got more in touch with his or her own experiences and emotional values, a complete cycle of stories would flood out of them. If a person wishes to heal their psychological hurts, and use their past experiences to enhance one’s creative outputs, there is no better way.

Proprioceptive writing can be used by people of all ages, and some psychiatrists have helped teenagers and children with low self-esteem, or those in need of counseling, with this method. Children who could not express themselves properly through writing were given crayons instead of pens or pencils, and were told to draw instead of write. So, how does one get started with proprioceptive writing in the first place?

Well, there are a few things you need to know before setting yourself the proprioceptive ‘mode’. We first need to ready our brain for appropriate reception, and calm the mind. We all know that settling into a state of immense calmness is very difficult for our fast paced life, but the essence of the proprioception comes only when we are settled into meditative calm. Our object is therefore to primarily settle the turbulence of our minds.

To do this is not that difficult, once we are committed to looking after our well-being, and seek the wonders that lie within our minds. Since each of us have had experiences, desires, feelings, dreams and disappointments unique to us, we can tap into their experiential residue and extract positive and creative content out of them.

Proprioceptive writing can turn even the most bitter experiences and nightmares that we may have harbored within ourselves for ages into positive, creative material. At the unique and individualistic emancipation of something so-far held as negative, we get a sense of high-held liberty. “Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free…” This remains at the core of every one seeking help through proprioceptive writing. Through a well-guided process of following the proprioceptive method, our long-term hurt becomes healed, and we receive a sense of well-being by realizing the lessons behind the most hurtful events in our lives.

We even get our very own creative fodder from our individual experiences! Eventually, we reach our dreams of being the best in ourselves by realizing the crazy uniqueness and individuality that creates our true self, and we learn to accept ourselves with our faults and mistakes along with our good points. In short, we learn to enjoy our lives to the fullest!

So how do we go about it? Any life-coach would charge you a hell of a lot of money to get you back to yourself. Try these techniques and see your life evolve. Let these points become your own free therapy, your own special time that you keep reserved each day just for your own use, and you will slowly see your “me-time” yielding great dividends later on!

Resources: Nick Sanders is the owner and founder of Supaproofread.com, an online proofreading and editing services company, specialising in manuscript proofreading and editing services. You should visit them if you are looking for professional proofreading

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Let’s Take A Look At Copywriting Assignments

Posted by Rdokoye in Copywriting


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There are numerous methods for you to acquire copywriting assignments. Within this article day, will focus on different websites where you can acquire copywriting assignments as well as how to acquire clients who will bring you copywriting assignments.

There are many different online freelance marketplaces where you can acquire copywriting science. There are three particular websites which stand head and shoulders above most others. The first of these is Guru Site. This is the biggest online freelance marketplace. He second of these three websites is Elance Site.

A third of these three websites is Findafreelancer Site. Each of these websites has a search agent which can e-mail jobs based upon the desired search criteria which you would like. The third website is the European version of the first two. It is the smallest of the three but is still a significant source of good copywriting work. Most of the websites do usually charge a subscription fee, whether it be monthly or quarterly. This can be a great investment because you will have access to copywriting assignments that you would not normally have seen.

There are many other ways to acquire copywriting assignments other than using online freelance marketplaces. This is a place where you can use your creativity in selling yourself. Many companies in need of copywriting work will not normally look online first. They may go towards local contacts and sources that they have because they feel more comfortable using someone who they can physically meet with. You can take advantage of these needs by cultivating contacts within your region.

Look into joining your Chamber of Commerce as well as other civic groups. Be sure to bring business cards with you and have a thirty second speech explaining what you do so that people remember what you do and who you are. Do not work at directly selling yourself to them at first but rather make the connection and allow them to come to you. People are more willing to do business with you when they actually know you rather then just a face on a website or an anonymous bid to a project that they post.

Another key when acquiring copywriting assignments is to make sure that you have a website. Many copywriters and professionals do not have a website and this can give you a competitive advantage. You can publish some of your past assignments on the Internet so that if people are interested, they can look at your website.

You do not have to worry about e-mailing them any information and they will contact you if they’re interested. If you work on getting your site indexed, people searching the Internet for copywriting could also stumble across your website and provide in other source of leads for you.

When looking for copywriting assignments, the key is that you must sell yourself and think creatively outside of the box. If you set yourself up well, you will find that you will be inundated with work by consistently prospecting for new business using some of the techniques explained above.

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs

For more information and resource links on copywriting visit: Copywriting Tips

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What Is The Current Copywriting Demand?

Posted by Rdokoye in Copywriting


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Within this article on copywriting demand, we will look at how much work there is out there for someone who wants to do freelance copywriting as well as the demand for copywriters as a profession.

Copywriting demand will always be strong. Demand will always be strong whether the economy is strong or weak. In past decades, it was easy to get away with a strong product and some marketing. With the emergence of globalization, there is a greater deal of competition in all markets and the way to stand apart is through marketing. For many consumers, the only way to be able to discern the differences between competing products is through the marketing. This ensures that copywriters are needed.

Any good company which wants to send a consistent message to a target audience will always be employing copywriters. Some companies not looking ahead to the future may cut their advertising budget when they hit weak sales but that is not a smart move. If a recession comes along, demand may go down by a small margin for copywriters but it would pick right back up when the economy turned around.

There is always need for copywriters so no matter what happens within the country, companies will want to make sure that they have copywriters to work for them. There is a growing demand for copywriters in one particular forum and that would be on the Internet. With the Web up past four billion web pages, the demand for search engine copywriting has continued to increase. It is harder to get your web site indexed and search engine copywriting give you a better chance of being indexed. To do this, the search engine copywriters must write well to ensure that two audiences, the people searching and the search bots, are appeased so this provides more opportunities.

If you are looking into copywriting, there are a great many opportunities within this field. You can work for an advertising agency or you can decide to work for yourself. Many jobs are available all over the country for copywriters and you will find that this copywriting demand will stay at about the same pace and continue to grow with the pace of the economy. If you go out to the website, monster, you will find that there are currently more than 500 jobs are available for copywriters. This is just a small piece of the job market. There are many other ways that you can find copywriting jobs currently at this time. This should give you an idea of how there is demand for copywriters.

Hopefully this article on copywriting demand will help you out. If you are a copywriter, you should find that no matter the condition of the economy, you will always find work. Even when the economy is in a recession, some companies’ sales are increasing and they may have a need for more copywriting work. With the demand of the whole market, you should always find yourself needed by someone. Good luck in finding a copywriting job but you will find that this is something that will often not be needed because of copywriting demand.

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs

For more information and resource links on copywriting visit: Copywriting Tips

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