Tag: work hard

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a copywriter and coffee

All words in written copy should give readers not only information and, yes, value, but sustenance. Something to thoughtfully feed upon, intensively consider, aside from the product being pitched. The thoughts that result in the reader make purchasing more likely, as they’ll see your client’s copy, that you wrote, as a beacon of knowledge. It made them think. There’s “value” in thought, alone. In the act of thinking. Don’t write to make readers think. No… Rather be the act of thought itself in the copy you write. Believe me, they’ll think. And, I vow, there’s a high likelihood they buy. And if they don’t buy now, you have their attention NOW. There’s always a chance they’ll be back. Why? The copy you wrote left an impression.

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Health/Wellness

Day off and want to take a nap?

Don’t.

Find something to do.

Stay tireless.

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Health/Wellness

wine has the writer 

IMG_8832Thinking about what he’s sipping more decidedly— it’s more than wine, this is more than an industry, and this new assignment I took with the AV winery and its sister properties is more than employment, some other job.  This is a yelling direction— a ravishing rewrite of totality, a scribble’s chiming of promise.  Sipping some Bacigalupi Chardonnay at present and wondering where the day went, where my life went.  I’m 22 days from 38.  What that means and implies I don’t know but I’m aware, and this new assignment could fix so much.

New business plan for the writer, new tone and eagerness to confront all reservations internal.  Wine tells me to think, simplify— “Nothing new.  Even if you think you have to.” She says.  I obey.  I’d never argue with her, with her curvature and vocalized rile wheeling newly garrulous color and quixotic talk…..  Me, renewed.  I have a lot to think about, going into this new age.  Has to do and deal with wine and then doesn’t.  So now what then, writer?  Don’t know.  Going to enjoy my pour, think like Kerouac on the train, or climbing the mountain, or by himself in the cabin.  38…. Fuck.  Wow, that’s really me.  ‘Nother glass…

(5/7/17)

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Health/Wellness

Woke in somewhat of a mood, but

that’s just me being stressed out me.  Started writing a poem in class, while students were in groups.  Hopefully will remember to finish it later.  Not in much a mood to go to img_1052Healdsburg but I’m going to force myself to work harder.  Will need coffee.  Much more coffee.  Well maybe not “much more”, but certainly more.  Was reading an article today that instructed on success in sales.  Was somewhat template and trite, but nonetheless valuable, and I guess encouraging.  One of the pillars, if I can call them that, was attitude, or general disposition.  And I thought of what that insurance agent told me years ago in San Leandro—  “Your biggest problem is your attitude.” Seems that it still is, sometimes.

Going to pack and leave after this sitting… giving self 8 more minutes.   I know what’s held for rest of day… sell wine for client, finish that poem…. gotta move— not feeling this conference room, and hearing the other instructors, the full-timers which could never understand this adjunct’s angst, start to annoy me.  Need to move, need to stop writing for a bit, return to this later— break patterns and find newness… be confrontational with the day, demand goals materialize, be more poetic, settle for NOTHING—

9:06PM.  Home, done with dinner, babies and wife asleep.  Me with Chardonnay, brainstorming move next with wine.  What if I turned into—  No.  Don’t give away the idea.  But I have to write it down.  Shit… where the fuck is my pen?  ‘A’ pen, for whatever’s sake?  No, don’t write it down.  If it’s meant to stick, it will.  The Chardonnay I’m sipping has me thinking of a trip, a trip to the East Coast where I’m by the water, back in my hotel room after a meeting, and winding down.  I call my wife and babies, talking to their visuals through my phone, already eager to be back home.  But I have work to do.  Wine brought me out here and I have to follow through with the story.—  Tonight’s a night of reinvention, the entire day, especially when I was thinking about where I am, about to turn 38—  I sat in my car eating some shitty lunch in Healdsburg, in a quiet spot behind the Safeway on Vine St, with a view of 101.  I could see the cars speed north and south, and wondered what each would think of my thoughts on wine, about me as a brand, my thoughts on wine and literature, how wine is entirely literary, that kind of thing—  AND, how my son will see me when he’s my age.  Need another glass.

I have another glass.  My evening’s last.  Want to get up early and work out here, home, strengthen core, lift weights, meditate.  This Chardonnay reminds me I’ve changed.  I mean, I used to tell people I wasn’t just one of those ‘ABC’ people, but I downright hated Chard.  And some would say, “Well, what about your sister’s?  Didn’t she build her career on Chardonnay?” I’d dodge the question whenever that happened. I’m different now.  I don’t know about more mature, or more open-minded, or what, but I’ve changed as a wine drinker.  And Chardonnay is one of the voices I look for on restaurant menus, on store shelves… everywhere, and for whatever justification I see ought.  Yes, there are still some interpretations of Chardonnay that perpetuate that stereotype and type I’d rather not drink, ever.  But right now I’m in a positive spot, sipping this Monterey version from ’15.  Not going to launch into descriptors ‘cause that’s just getting to be some exhaustive overplayed bullshit.  I’m enjoying my evening, out of any mood that started this morning.

Need my pen.  I’m going to forget that idea.  Not before another sip.  Ah, I love THIS attitude, this altitude.

(3/7/17)

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Health/Wellness

inward jot

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Sunday Hi

Quiet daddy moment where everyone in the house is asleep.  This could be broken at any second.  Half-second.  Or nanosecond.  Been a productive morning, early afternoon approaching.  Clock pluming 11:53 and I just wait for something, some foot or shoe or anvil to drop.  A noise, more than likely will come in the form of Emma crying, or Jack calling me up and that will wake Emmie, espousing a cry from her little lungs.  Business ideas all morning… from photography, to written content, copywriting, this Monday letter I have brewing.  Have to keep the creative in more vigorous streams.  Actually, I should be writing for the Monday letter, tentatively titled and will be more than likely called “rune rove”.  But, will be doing that tonight, speaking to audience directly about Monday and how it’s only an idea—  Monday?  Who gives a fuck about Monday?  If anything, you should rush at Monday.  You should look more forward to tomorrow than you do Friday.—  No more.  Saving it for first Monday of the ‘rrr’ (rune rove reign).

No sound from anyone, yet.  Wife napping on couch, so much deserved after she let me sleep, or go back to sleep, for an additional 90 minutes this morning after waking with the babes.  No sound from silly little Kerouac who giggled the whole way up the stairs and I was terrified Em would wake, but I caught a break, somehow.  So here I am, with a rare quiet daddy moment with everyone asleep.  But I have to focus on tomorrow, what I want done.  Will be at a client’s all day, but will take notes between calls and jots for him.  The photography, selling stock images… hmmm.  Thought about that before but not sure how to build such a focus within my business.  Will research a little after this paragraph, if I’m not noosed upstairs by one of the little beats.

We writing parents have one hard job and we garnish it with another, which precipitates to this, the writing parent.  So now what.  What do you write about with this free time, and all you have on your mind?  No so easy, huh?  I know, believe me.  This quiet unnerves me, unexpectedly.  Hear kids playing somewhere outside.  Want to throw open the door and tell them to ‘SHUT UP!  My kids are napping!’ But I won’t, of course.  It’s Sunday.  The day kids are supposed to be heard playing.  Thirty years ago, I had the same job.  Get up, watch some cartoons, clean my room, and play.  Around our house on Bayview Drive.  Seems like forever past, but also a near yesterday, where I can hear everyone, everything on and around that street just as I can hear the kids on Autumn Walk and Gold Leaf on the other side of that door.  Snapping out of my memory, the nanosecond turned into an actual minute or two.  Not bad.  Me, happy writing dad.  But now what do I do?

(1/29/17)

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Health/Wellness

Thoughts, ce matin…

Don’t expect the new year to be your year too quickly.  Have the attitude that it’s yours, but realize materializations may be a bit away.

Have an inspiring middle of the semaine…

-Mike

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Health/Wellness

GEMS

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Article posted.  Now I’m more than eager for the rest of the day.  In office for a couple hours before getting into the tasting room for a few hours.  Moving more than a mile a minute.  And I’m more than simply inspired.  I know what ’17 is bringing.  And I’m ready for it, abundantly.  Listening to some music in the office before heading to the room to pour, talk about wine, educate people on the property and Debra’s story.

‘Nother goal for new year— don’t be so obsessed with word count.  I mean, why?  Yes it’s a goal and yes it’s a solid number, and yes, I know, much of writing and journalism involves targeting word counts and submission guidelines usually involve word count-something.  But I’m going the other way, if you don’t mind…  Actually I don’t care if you mind.  2017 is about doing everything differently.  EVERYTHING.  New habits, new art, new words, new language, new music, new teaching methods.  Everyone this morning eager to get out of here.  I dread departure.  I’m too propelled in the day, this music I’m listening to, how the vineyard looks.  Gemmes…

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Health/Wellness

2017, exhibition day 2

In car.  In healdsburg early.  So far, the second exhibition fairs well.  Should have pushed self a bit further last night, but I needed sleep.  Much into the coffee, this morrow, about to go to client’s tasting room for DTC work.  What else I want from ’17, more time with kids, as I think I noted in a recent entry but I need to punctuate that aim again.  This morning with Jack, him looking down at me in that pull-out bed, quite aggressively and comedically saying “WAKE UP, DADA!” I told him I needed a couple more minutes of sleep but he didn’t care.  And thanks to him, I had my early start.  Not 4AM-early, but early enough for this yay-saying yodel.  Sip coffee, watch cars pass me here on Vine Street… now a runner passes.  Car tells me it’s 37 degrees outside.  Hope the tasting room is heated this morning, as last time it was like an icy tomb not allowing me to be comfortable.  But none of that, no critiques or even mild assessments.  The second ’17 trial, of this newly electric and musical Me.  Away, away…  Thanks to the coffee and little Kerouac, my beat it tireless and apt.

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Health/Wellness

#papablogga note

Don’t get frustrated.  Only embrace the time you have to write.  If you can only scribble a note, be more than content with it.  Embrace it…  immerse yourself in it.  We writing parents are not gifted so much as we are challenged by time.  The challenge is to control it, make it work for you and write with what time you have.  Not a second squandered.  I have about two minutes before my daughter whom I just put down for a nap erupts in a lightening storm, Blitzkrieg, avalanche of hellish protest.  So I use it.  I don’t complain about what little time I have, I fortify self in that time, this time and all times, all moments.  By writing.  I’ll have time for a longer piece, later.

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Health/Wellness

Tuesday seems out to get me.

I’m not letting its self-pity fruit tempt me even a microscopic amount.  Kids testing me, then parking downtown (dollar to park for hour when I won’t be here an infernal hour), long wait for coffee.  Breathing, breathing…  hoping I find a spot to sit and write as I am–

Seated at round table in middle of floor with back to people who enter and leave, which I don’t at all like.  Moved to other side of table… now wifi gives the writer grief.  “Stop your boring-as-ever complaining!” I throw at self.  “No one cares!” You’re right.  Calling today “Attack Tuesday”.  Meant, I’m attacking this soggy sequel to Monday and it’s the day where I attack everything.  Get closer to my road chargestars, my teaching in other states, on other campuses.  English 1A ending last night, the writer sad.  Motivated from all the feedback that I’m meant to be there but not just there, on that campus–  I have to share ideas and yay-saying fire with the world if I can.  This music relaxes me.  Haven’t sipped the mocha, not yet.  Today is positive, today is set abalze by my stubbornness to have it progress any other way than one fixed for me.  Tuesday doesn’t have control, and I have more control than I know to manage.  Why couldn’t I see that earlier?  Get everything done today…  don’t allow anything in that slows.  Fire never slows.  I’m ready to sip my mocha and watch my thumbing on this phone increase in velocity.

Starting to settle.  I’m in business, right?  An owner?  A “proprietor” as so many in the wine’s wobbly industry love to voice?  Then act like it.  If you’re in business or want to be free, autonomous truly, then just with your inferno take it.  First sip and I can feel Tuesday’s grip slip.  See?  No more whining.  Only self-assured blurb.  Music more, music more…  song by Air, “Playground Love” (Vibraphone Version).  I relax further and see me in flight as my sister is, traveling for her winery, staring down at clouds and knowing I’m where I’m supposed to be.  “Write more, write more,” I urge matriculants, “and when you think you’re done tell yourself you haven’t even started.  Convince yourself the story needs you…” I have.  I follow my own noose tightening.  No one else’s.  As writers and creatives, as those sprinting for independence, we have to know what our story is.  Not necessarily how it ends, but WHAT it is.  Me, the writing father, seeking travel and new experiences to write about and teach from, share with my babies… more sharing ideas that I’m convinced can lead others to having their own ideas rather than just conventionally teaching.

And just like that, here in Peet’s on 4th & D, I’m better, and Tuesday’s on the run.