A more personal window on my world in copywriting and creative work.
General comment
March started with the big freeze. After wheel-spinning my way to Braintree and back for a meeting, I knew it was wiser to leave any more driving for another day. Fortunately, the rest of the month was a lot smoother, travel-wise and work-wise too. Not much slack time this month.
What I’ve been working on
A few longer projects this month, punctuated by a couple of nice smaller jobs:
- Website pages for an accountancy firm
- Edited brochure copy for a design agency
- Further website pages for a Las Vegas law firm
- Copy-edited quick blog posts for a pest control company
- Started the website content for an IT recruitment business
What will April bring? Continuing on projects started in March, and a few smaller jobs are starting to line up.
Personal writing
Finally finished writing the first draft of my first play: ‘The Creepy Christmas Show For Kids’ – phew. To my further relief, the producer also seems really happy with it – thanks Neil! R&D workshops start in April.
Otherwise, I’m still finishing the second book in the ‘Bug Squad’ series. Need to get that done so I can edit both books and start getting ready to pitch to agents.
Out and about
Colchester Digital – a cracking event this month with Matt Chick and Dean Leigh going deeper into how they work to build websites in terms of both the philosophy and the technicalities.
Networking – good to meet new visitors at the vibrant Chelmsford Business Breakfast Club and great conversations with the regular members as usual! The last meeting at EBN Colchester was intimate but very in-depth, and I’m presenting on copywriting this coming Tuesday morning, so come along for some fun. Business Biscotti was lovely as ever – I’m seriously thinking of getting some new profile shots done by Mark Coventry.
Writenight – this month’s session featured guest playwright Nicola Werenowska giving us fascinating insights into her approach to dialogue and monologue. Productive and thought-provoking, she always knows exactly the right exercise to get ideas rolling.
I was also chuffed to attend Neil Gibb’s launch for his book ‘The Participation Revolution’ at Waterstones. It’s an intriguing read through disruption and economics in the contemporary and near-future world – I’m aiming to finish it in April!
On the headphones
As ever, Boards Of Canada, Loscil, Deadmau5 and so on…
But also a whole bunch of tunes created by my 9-year-old son Nathan on Garageband! I’ve got a playlist of 23 tracks that he produced pretty quickly from Nov 2017 to Feb 2018 just using the sounds and loops available, and they’re all pretty good! I need to set up a Soundcloud account for him…
What I’m reading
I’m currently working my way through ‘Confessions of an Advertising Man’ by David Ogilvy, and also rushed through ‘Instant Influence & Charisma’ by Paul McKenna, which contains a surprising amount of marketing techniques.
Favourite article of the month
I’m tempted to say my own blog post on Progressive Procrastination as it turned into a bit of a labour of love, but I’m going to go for this incredibly thorough and useful article on web design tips from the ever-impressive Orbit Media:
https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/web-design-tips/
Until next month – get into the joys of spring, lighter evenings, April showers, and stay productive!
Do you have any questions about what I could do for you? Drop me a line via my Contact page and I promise to respond within 24 hours, if not 24 minutes.