Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Value of Good Writing

Last night, I was working on new content for my website's home page. While I love the look and style of my existing home page, and I love the layout, I just don't feel like it captures me, who I am, and what services I offer, so I feel like it needs to change to be more in line with what my true talents are, what I bring to the table for prospective clients, and what represents me and my voice more consistently.

I don't approach this lightly. I have had considerable success with the website as it is. I've been given good jobs, and just like many baseball players out there, I'm afraid that change will jinx everything. It's funny that, at 38, I'm worried about jinxes and voodoo curses, but I'm smart enough to know that the message is important. The entire page, graphics, and layout send a message, and any changes to the home page inevitably changes the message. This, I learned, as a Rhetorician.

However, I've also received a lot of feedback from clients who've hired me. They hired me, not because of the rhetoric background or the Sophistic point of view, but because they saw, in my writing, a depth that they haven't seen from other people. Inevitably, those people who hired me took time to go to my portfolio and read my samples, they've visited this blog to read my day-to-day natural voice, and they've seen the inspired words and rhythms that I have left on paper.
I've been told, over and over, that my writing is more than just writing. It has a fluidity to it, and it can be poetic, even when I'm writing prose or the informal blog post. It's the poet inside of me who is responsible for this style. It cannot help but leech out into my essays, articles, and posts. As I've looked back at all of my writing throughout the years, my best work is full of poetic devices, and the rhetoric is much more powerful when I feed off of my right brain. Messages become more clear, persuasion becomes more effective, and reading my work becomes more enjoyable.

Over time, I've tried to hide this component of my voice. I have done it willingly at times, and I have done it subconsciously at others. Either way, however, when I do it, my writing suffers, or at least I feel like it does. Simply, I write best when I feel the words, and when I feel what I'm writing, it's like I'm pulling every sentence out of my heart. This is when I'm at my best.

After thinking about it for some time, I realized that this is what separates me from the majority of writers who I compete against for jobs. Most writers out there are mechanics of the English language. There are a lot of people who can take words and place them on paper to form a sentence. They take those sentences and make paragraphs, and they take those paragraphs to make essays or chapters in a book. The result is always uninspired reading. The subject is covered completely, but the writing is flat.

Perhaps this satisfies some people. It doesn't satisfy me, though. I've picked up and put down more books than I've read because the writing wasn't satisfactory. The words did not flesh out the subject, and the topic or characters were not brought to life. There was no emotional response, and before I knew it, I lost interest in the book.

But, unfortunately for the industry, there are many more "word mechanics" out there than there are artists. The sad part about it is that these people, because they are not putting their heart and soul into their work, are charging pennies on the dollar for their efforts. These are the people who I compete against, and these are the people who I have to separate myself from. I have to show the value of their work is not equal to the value that I bring to the table.

How do you define "value," though, when you're discussing writing? I know the answer to this, but I also know that it cannot be compared as easily to the value of a car, for example, but the same methodology applies. If someone charges $100 to write an essay for a company's product, and that essay is never read, or it does not inspire people to purchase the product, then that $100 is wasted. On the other hand, if someone charges $1,000 to write an essay, and that essay is well-received, read, and motivates readers to buy $10,000 worth of product, then that $1,000 was a much better value than the $100 the other writer charged.

I've had people hire me and tell me that they had already paid for someone to write something for them, but they had to go back and do most of the re-writing themselves because the writer did not deliver on his promises. Those customers lost money because they inevitably hired me to do it right. I was the real value, yet I charged more than the other person.

You see, writing is so much more than coming up with a thesis statement, drafting an outline, and putting words on paper. Poets and great writers of literature know this. Why do you think they buck the rules so much? Because they know that writing is art. It's music, it's painting, it's dance... all through words. The emotions and rhythm, the pouring of one's soul onto the canvas... that's what great writers do. Poetry is not confined to poems. Great poets write great prose because they know the power of language. This is something that cannot be learned in a workshop or class. It's a talent. You're born with it. To say there is no value in that is ludicrous. The value is in the reaction of the reader to the writing. The value is in the ability to get the reader to dance with the poet, letting the poet take the lead. Then, the message is heard, and it is not forgotten easily.

Many will say that I'm arrogant. That I put myself above other writers. I'm not insinuating that at all. I am saying, though, that I am a poet at heart, and I do grasp the power of language. This is why I can write in any voice and in any style that I want to. I am persuasive because I feel my words, and I feel the readers as they read those words. Innately, I know how to take the words and create images, voices, sounds, feelings, and thoughts in the readers' heads. My best work, that work that I've done as a poet, is proof of that.

The struggle that I have, and the one that I now face in thinking about changing my home page, revolves around the struggle I've had my entire life. Do I embrace the poet, or do I become the writer who is nothing more than mechanic? I feel much better about myself when I am the poet -- mind you, not just writing poetry, but in writing all things. I put myself on the line every time, and I love that. When I write like a mechanic, I feel bad. I feel like I've let my client down, and I've let myself down.

I am best as a poet, and I embrace images and the simpler things in life. I am best when I take the everyday things and make them extraordinary. When I let myself go, and I follow my right brain, I win every time, and so do my clients. When I fail to let my heart speak, I fail everyone, especially my readers. The fight to make my words magic, and the magic itself, is the value of bringing something special to the table. I am no longer fixing an old car to get it to run. I am restoring an antique in its original form, all with original parts.

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