Podcasts about demian farnworth

What did you once love to do that you put aside as you advanced your career? Is retirement a second chance to pursue those dreams? Your interests and your talents may be different from my guest today, but his story may inspire you to reconnect with your earlier interests. My guest today is John P. Weiss. He's a fine artist, cartoonist, photographer and author of two books. A former police chief and 26 year law enforcement veteran, John retired early to pursue his creative life. His Saturday Letter is something I look forward to reading every weekend. John P. Weiss joins us from Nevada. __________________________ Bio John P. Weiss is a full-time artist, writer, and photographer. He paints tonalist landscapes, draws whimsical cartoons, writes poignant essays about life, and shoots artful, black & white photos. He is the author of "An Artful Life: Inspirational Stories and Essays for the Artist in Everyone" and "The Cartoon Art of John P. Weiss." Over 48K followers enjoy John's weekly essays. John used to be a police chief  for the Scotts Valley Police Department in Northern California. He holds a master's degree in criminal justice administration and enjoyed a 26-year career in law enforcement, serving the last ten as chief of police. John retired early in order to pursue his creative life full-time. In his police career, John served as a detective, sergeant, lieutenant, operations and services commander, composite sketch artist, hostage negotiator, impact weapons instructor, peer counselor, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) officer, training manager, police chief, and acting city manager. He is the recipient of the "Medal of Merit" for his work with children and related programs. Cartoonist During John's police career, he moonlighted as an editorial cartoonist for several newspapers. His cartoons appear in various editions of Charles Brooks's Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year.  For several years, John published articles and a popular comic strip, The Life of Art , on the art and marketing website Fine Art Views. John hand draws his cartoons in pen, ink and watercolor. He also crafts cartoons digitally on his iPad Pro. Here's a video of John sketching one of his cartoons. Influences include the cartoonists Pat Oliphant, Jeff MacNelly, Richard Thompson, Berke Breathed, Bill Watterson, and George Herriman. Writer During John's law enforcement career he frequently contributed articles to various newspapers and publications. A life long reader and writer, he started blogging and publishing work online in early 2014. John studied writing and blogging with the author Jeff Goins in Franklin, Tennessee. John also hired copywriting expert Demian Farnworth to learn the art of writing compelling content. John is a top writer on the website Medium and his work also appears on the following sites: The Guardian, Medium.com, NBC News, Becoming Minimalist, Mr. Feelgood, The Unmistakable Creative, Austin Art Talk, Elephant Journal, Fine Art Views, Goins Writer, Good Men Project, Your Creative Push Podcast, Thrive Global, The Ladders, and more. Photography John enjoys shooting artful, monochromatic photographs with his Sony A6600 camera and Sigma prime lenses. He prefers the contrast, simplicity, and elegance of black and white film and photography. John sometimes enjoys creating post-production vintage effects in his photographs, to give them a timeless look. Fine artist John took vacations to study landscape painting with renowned artist Scott L. Christensen, among other artists. John supplemented his art education with museum visits, books, videos, regular practice, and experimentation. John paints landscapes in various mediums, including oils, gouache, watercolor and pen & ink. He employs a limited palette and strives for painterly realism mixed with pleasing abstraction. John is an avid reader. He and his wife have an impressive library of books,

Rehema Kavugha, Synod Relations Manager for Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF), and Demian Farnworth, Content Manager for LCEF, join Andy and Sarah to talk about the LCEF Magazine Interest Time, how this magazines tells the stories of the church, and what we can look forward to in the next issue. Find Interest Time at interesttime.org and learn more about LCEF at lcef.org.

In this week s episode we proceed to the next step in our series on content marketing strategy by discussing how to know what content you need to be delivering to achieve your content marketing goals. Listen to Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes Important links from this episode: Experimental study of apparent behavior. Fritz Heider & Marianne Simmel. 1944 Try StudioPress Sites Sites Weekly Newsletter Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts @JerodMorris on Twitter How to Know Exactly What Content to Deliver to Convert More Prospects The Anatomy of an Experience Map How to Use Customer Experience Maps to Develop a Winning Content Marketing Strategy Principles of Persuasion video The Ultra Powerful 7th Principle of Persuasion The Transcript Jerod Morris: Welcome to Sites, a podcast by the teams at StudioPress and Copyblogger. In this show, we deliver time-tested insight on the four pillars of a successful WordPress website: content, design, technology, and strategy. We want to help you get a little bit closer to reaching your online goals, one episode at a time. I m your host Jerod Morris. Sites is brought to you by StudioPress Sites — the complete hosted solution that makes WordPress fast, secure, and easy without sacrificing power or flexibility. For example, you can upload your own WordPress theme, or, you can use one of the 20 beautiful StudioPress themes that are included and just one click away. Explore all the amazing things you can do with a StudioPress Site, and you ll understand why this is way more than traditional WordPress hosting. No matter how you ll be using your site, we have a plan to fit your needs — and your budget. To learn more, visit studiopress.com/sites. That s studiopress.com/sites. Welcome to Episode 9 of Sites. Last week we discussed strategy, outlining 10 content marketing goals worth pursuing. Assuming you are focused on pursuing at least one of those goals, and hopefully many more than one, it s now time to resume our series on content marketing strategy. In Episode 1, we outlined the three-step process for creating a winning content marketing strategy: the who, the what, and how. Then in Episode 5, we took a deep dive into the first step in that process, the who, by analyzing how to attract your ideal customer with perfectly positioned content. And in this week s episode we proceed to the next step, the what, by digging into a decision that can be, at times, really exciting and fun, and at other times somewhat challenging and even frustrating. We re going to discuss how to know what content you need to be delivering to achieve your content marketing goals — one of which, I assume, is to convert more prospects. And since the blog post that I am adapting for this episode was written by Brian Clark, you won t be surprised to find out that there is discussion of the hero s journey and examples from Star Wars right around the corner. Let s dive in now and learn how to know exactly what content to deliver to convert more prospects. How to Know Exactly What Content to Deliver to Convert More Prospects Back in the 1940s, psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted an experiment. They showed study participants an animated film consisting of a rectangle with an opening, plus a circle and two triangles in motion. The participants were then asked to simply describe what they saw in the film. Before you continue listening, if you want to take a look at the film yourself, go to the show notes for this episode at studiopress.blog/sites09. There s a link to the film on YouTube right there at the top of the link bullets. It s a short film, about a minute. I ll be here when you come back. So … what did you see? Out of all the study participants, only one responded with a rectangle with an opening, plus a circle and two triangles in motion. The rest developed elaborate stories about the simple geometric shapes. Many participants concluded the circle and the little triangle were in love, and that the evil grey triangle was trying to harm or abduct the circle. Others went further to conclude that the blue triangle fought back against the larger triangle, allowing his love to escape back inside, where they soon rendezvoused, embraced, and lived happily ever after. That s pretty wild when you think about it. The Heider-Simmel experiment became the initial basis of attribution theory, which describes how people explain the behavior of others, themselves and also, apparently, geometric shapes on the go. More importantly, people explain things in terms of stories. Even in situations where no story is being intentionally told, we re telling ourselves a tale as a way to explain our experience of reality. And yes, we tell ourselves stories about brands, products, and services. Whether you re consciously telling a story or not, prospects are telling themselves a story about you. Are you telling a story? And more importantly, does that story resonate with the way your prospective customers and clients are seeing things? This is the key to knowing what your prospect needs to hear, and when they need to hear it, as part of your overall content marketing strategy. And in a networked, information-rich world where the prospects have all the power, this is your only chance to control the narrative. What kind of story should you tell? You need to tell a Star Wars story. And by that, I mean you need to take your prospects along a content marketing version of the mythic hero s journey. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell identifies a monomyth a fundamental structure common to myths that have survived for thousands of years. Campbell s identification of these enduring myths from disparate times and regions has inspired modern storytellers to consciously craft their work following the monomyth framework, also known as the hero s journey. Most notable among those inspired by the hero s journey is George Lucas, who acknowledged Campbell s work as the source of the plot for Star Wars. As a content marketer, you can also consciously incorporate the monomyth into your launches, funnels, and general editorial calendar. If you go to Brian Clark s original post, at copyblogger.com/what, you ll find an image that shows the general elements of the hero s journey. They include elements you re likely familiar with if you ve learned about the hero s journey in the past: The call to adventure Meeting the mentor Crossing the threshold between The Ordinary World and The World of Transformation Helpers and Challengers Into the Innermost Cave The Supreme Ordeal Seizing Your Treasure, And finally, The Journey Home It s important to note that not all monomythic stories contain every aspect, but the original Star Wars faithfully follows almost every element of the hero s journey. Let s focus on the first two steps of the journey, in the ordinary world before the journey truly begins. Here s how those elements occurred in the original Star Wars. Luke is living in the ordinary world of his home planet, working on the family farm. The call to adventure is R2-D2 s holographic message from Princess Leia, the classic princess in distress. Luke initially refuses the call due to his family obligations, until his aunt and uncle are killed. Luke meets his mentor and guide, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who convinces Luke to proceed with his heroic journey. Obi-Wan gives Luke a gift that determines his destiny his father s lightsaber. How does this apply to content marketing? Simple. Your prospect is Luke. You are Obi-Wan. The mistake most often made in marketing is thinking of your business as the hero, resulting in egocentric messages that no one else cares about. The prospect is always the primary hero, because they are the one going on the journey whether big or small to solve a problem or satisfy a desire. The prospect starts off in the ordinary world of their lives. The call to adventure is an unsolved problem or unfulfilled desire. There s resistance to solving that problem or satisfying the desire. A mentor (your brand) appears that helps them proceed with the journey. You deliver a gift (your content) that ultimately leads to a purchase. By making the prospect the hero, your brand also becomes a hero in the prospect s story. And by accepting the role of mentor with your content, your business accomplishes its goals while helping the prospect do the same. Which is how business is supposed to work, right? 8 core steps in the buyer s journey Brian Clark has been using the hero s journey to teach marketing and sales since 2007. He has found that just the act of thinking of the prospect as the hero makes you a better content marketer. When you think in terms of empowering people to solve their problem by playing the role of mentor, you re naturally performing better than competitors who take an egocentric approach. This is also the exact way we come up with content marketing strategies for our own launches, funnels, and general editorial calendar. After years of using this strategic process, I ve found that every buyer s journey contains key points where you must deliver the right information at the right time to succeed at an optimal level. Remember, each journey is tied to a particular who that you have documented. Some people create content journeys for multiple personas, but my advice is that you pick one at first and focus. Even Apple stuck with one target persona for the entirety of the Get a Mac campaign, which we discussed back in episode 5. You ll notice I use the word problem here coming up, rather than problem or desire. An unfulfilled desire is a problem in the mind of the prospect, so it works on its own. Here are the 8 core steps in the buyer s journey: 1. Ordinary World: This is the world (and worldview) that your ideal prospect lives in. She may be aware of the problem that she has, but she hasn t yet resolved to do something about it. You understand how this person thinks, sees, feels, and behaves due to the empathy mapping process. 2. Call to Adventure: The prospect decides to take action to solve the problem. It could be a New Year s resolution, a longstanding goal, or a problem that rears its head for the first time. 3. Resistance to the Call: At this point, the prospect starts to waver in her commitment to solving the problem. Maybe it seems too hard, too expensive, too time consuming, or simply too impractical. As we ll discuss in a bit, this is a key content inflection point. 4. The Mentor and the Gift: This is the point that you are initially accepted as a mentor that guides the buyer s journey. The prospect accepts your offer of a gift, in the form of information, that promises to help her solve the problem. 5. Crossing the Threshold: This is the point of purchase where the prospect believes that your product or service will lead to the problem being solved, which will lead to transformation. The most important thing to understand is that, unlike flawed funnel metaphors, the journey does not end at purchase. 6. Traveling the Road: The customer begins using the product or service with the goal of achieving success in the context of the problem. Who cares if the customer stops the journey right after purchase, right? Wrong too often this leads to a refund request; plus you miss out on the huge benefits that accompany a happy customer. 7. Seizing the Treasure: The customer experiences success with your product or service. What does this look like for them and you? How will you know when it happens? 8. The New Ordinary: The customer has experienced a positive transaction with you, and yet we re just now getting to the really good stuff. This is a perfect time to prime them for repeat or upsell purchases or referrals. At this point, deliver content that aims at retention for recurring revenue products, and make savvy requests for direct referrals, testimonials, and word of mouth. Of the eight, only Traveling the Road isn t universal if you re an electrician, you show up and either fix the problem or don t. But if you re selling software-as-a-service, for example, content that gets users engaged with the platform is critical to reducing churn. These core steps can provide you with a beginning framework for a detailed map of the buyer s journey. The next step is to add the touchpoints that are unique to your product or service. Your unique journey map You may be thinking about how exactly you re supposed to map this out. Fortunately, there s already an established procedure for this, just as during the who phase. An experience map is a visual representation of the path a consumer takes from beginning to end with your content, and then with your product or service. By mapping the journey, you know where the additional crucial touchpoints are, and what content can empower the journey to continue. There is an example of an experience map in Brian s original post at copyblogger.com/what. The map demonstrates the journey a consumer would take while riding the trains in Europe. It follows her from the early stages of research and planning to the end of her trip. You see what she is doing (searching Google, looking up timetables), what she is thinking during each action (do I have everything I need, and am I on the right train?), and what she is feeling (stressed: I m about to leave the country and Rail Europe won t answer the phone). Do you see the correlation with the empathy mapping exercise you did back when developing a snapshot of your ideal customer in Episode 5? It s no coincidence that we re now applying what the prospect is Thinking, Seeing, Doing, and Feeling in their ordinary world to the journey they need to travel. In a piece called the Anatomy of an Experience Map, Chris Risdon at Adaptive Path suggests your experience map should have these five components: 1. The lens: This is how a particular person (or persona) views the journey. Keep in mind, this journey will not be the same for everyone. You will more than likely have more than one experience map. 2. The journey model: This is the actual design of the map. If all goes well, it should render insight to answer questions like What happens here? What s important about this transition? 3. Qualitative insight: This is where the Thinking-Seeing-Doing-Feeling of an empathy map comes in handy. 4. Quantitative information: This is data that brings attention to certain aspects of your map. It reveals information like 80 percent of people abandon the process at this touchpoint. 5. Takeaways: This is where the map earns its money. What are the conclusions? Opportunities? Threats to the system? Does it identify your strengths? Highlight your weaknesses? If you want more insight on customer experience maps, I ve placed a link in the show notes to a post on Copyblogger by Demian Farnworth that does a deep dive into the subject. Like empathy mapping, it can be done solo, but works even better as a collaborative process, so that everyone on your team understands the journey from the perspective of the prospect and subsequent customer. Mapping the 7 key influence principles When you consider influential content, you may naturally think that it s about how you present the information. While that s true from an engagement standpoint, which principle of influence to apply and when to emphasize it is an exercise in what as well. In other words, beyond the raw information of the what, you ll also want to identify the order of emphasis for things like reciprocity, social proof, authority, liking, commitment and consistency, unity, and scarcity. Every successful digital marketer I know purposefully applies those seven principles in their content and copy, because they all treat the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini as their bible. If you haven t read it, you should but in the meantime check out two additional links I ve included in the show notes, at studiopress.blog/sites09: one a short video that explains the original six principles of persuasion, and then also an article by Sonia Simone on the all-important 7th principle of unity. At Rainmaker Digital, we think in terms of four different types of content when mapping the buyer s journey. Keep in mind that great marketing content contains all of these elements; you re simply selecting a category based on the primary aim of the individual piece at the appropriate time. First up we have Attraction content, otherwise known as top of funnel information. This corresponds best with the Resistance to the Call point of the hero s journey it addresses the problem while also addressing common objections to moving forward. In addition to creating the feeling that you re reading their mind, you re also invoking early influence through reciprocity, social proof through share numbers, and establishing authority. Next up, you have your cornerstone influence principle thanks to Authority content. The important thing is that you demonstrate authority, rather than claim it. Your Attraction content sets the stage, and your Authority content should be gated behind an email opt-in. At this stage, you re establishing clear authority, continuing to leverage reciprocity and social proof, and adding liking, plus commitment and consistency thanks to the opt-in. Next is Affinity content, which solidly positions you as a likable expert, but it goes beyond that. This is where you let your core values shine. You reflect the prospect s worldview back to them in a completely authentic way, prompting the powerful principle of unity. Never underestimate how often people choose to do business with people they like, and who also see the world like they do. Finally, it all comes down to Action. You don t look for ultimate action at the beginning of the journey. But you do rely on smaller actions along the way, especially at the bridge between Attraction content and Authority content. That said, the key influence principle at this stage is scarcity, which you ve earned the right to employ thanks to the other six principles. People fear missing out more than they desire gain, so make sure to use it ethically. This is the outline of your story It s tempting at this point to try to imagine how you re going to execute on your strategy, but you re not quite there yet. For now, map the journey experience. In addition to your character, you ve now got the plot points in the narrative you re weaving. All that s left is to figure out how to tell the story. That s coming up in four weeks when we hit Content again and continue our series on content marketing strategy. Now stick around this week s hyper-specific call to action is coming up. What you just heard was adapted from Brian Clark s blog post How to Know Exactly What Content to Deliver to Convert More Prospects, originally published at Copyblogger.com. You can find a link to the original article in the show notes at studiopress.blog/sites09. It s a pretty simple link: copyblogger.com/what. Now to this week s hyper-specific call to action … Call to action As usual with these episodes adapted from Brian s content marketing strategy series, the CTA is pretty simple and right there in the post. For this episode, it is to map the journey experience you want your audience to go on as they interact with your content. Think about the 8 steps in the buyer s journey that we outlined in this episode, and then figure out how the four different types of content — Attraction, Authority, Affinity, and Action — will help you create that experience. You can use the experience map example in the show notes to help you, or you can devise your own style of mapping, or even just describing this experience. At a minimum, think about it. Take some step toward being intentional and strategic about the experience you want your audience to have as they go through your content. And remember: THEY are the hero, not you. You are the mentor, the guide, but it s THEIR problems you re looking to help solve, THEIR goals you re looking to help them achieve, THEIR objections you re looking to overcome. This call to action may take you a little bit longer than the others, but it s worth it. Coming next week, it s back to design. We re going to talk about a specific type of design: UX design, or user experience design, and how doing this right is an investment that pays off in numerous ways. That s next week, on Sites. Finally, before I go, here are two more quick calls to action for you to consider: Subscribe to Sites Weekly If you haven t yet, please take this opportunity to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly. Here s how it works: Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you don t want to miss, and then I send them out via email on Wednesday afternoon. Reading this newsletter will help you make your website more powerful and successful. Go to studiopress.com/news and sign up in one step right there at the top of the page. That s studiopress.com/news. Oh, and I should mention, we occasionally include special offers in these emails too — stuff that isn t otherwise marketed publicly. So if you like StudioPress products, keep your eye out for special deals in your Sites Weekly email. Again, it s studiopress.com/news. Rate and Review Sites on Apple Podcasts And finally, if you enjoy the Sites podcast, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts (formerly known as iTunes), and consider giving us a rating or a review over there as well. One quick tip on that: to make the best use of your review, let me know something in particular you like about the show. That feedback is really important. For example, here is a recent review we received Apple ID Enlightenment Through Food: I was looking for some advice on setting up my site, but I didn t realize how important my content and strategy is. It doesn t matter how pretty your site is if you aren t getting your message out and creating an audience. Thank you for helping with this piece of my site puzzle! You re welcome Enlightenment! Thank you for listening, and for being so open to additional ideas for how to create a thriving web presence. To find us in Apple Podcasts, search for StudioPress Sites and look for the striking purple logo that was designed by Rafal Tomal. You can also go to the URL sites.fm/apple and it will redirect you to our Apple Podcasts page. And with that, we come to the close of another episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Sites. I appreciate you being here. Join me next week, and let s keep building powerful, successful websites together. This episode of sites was brought to you by StudioPress Sites, which was awarded Fastest WordPress Hosting of 2017 in an independent speed test . If you want to make WordPress fast, secure, and easy — and, I mean, why wouldn t you — visit studiopress.com/sites today and see which plan fits your needs. That s studiopress.com/sites.

Demian Farnworth and Ash Roy uncover the key elements of web copywriting, the importance of understanding good web design, and why passion is so critical to great writing. In this 31-minute episode, Demian and Ash discuss: The two challenges that all content faces online The key elements to great web copy The importance of subheadlines,... Listen to episode

This week, Demian Farnworth sits down with Kirsten Oliphant to chat about introverts, what unique things introverts can bring to the table when there isn t anything really new, and what drives them crazy about the world we re in right now. In this 40-minute episode, Demian and Kirsten discuss: Finding and connecting with a new audience... Listen to episode

This week, Demian Farnworth chats with Dan Levy over at Unbounce about content marketing, web writing and creating great content. In this 21-minute episode, Dan and Demian discuss: Why any compelling piece of content needs to begin with thorough research The difference (and similarities) between web writers, content marketers and copywriters Why having a working... Listen to episode

Jobs in print media may be drying up, but content marketing has created thousands of jobs for writers. On this new playing field, what exactly does it take to set yourself apart from the army of other content marketers? According to Demian Farnworth of Copyblogger, it takes great determination, a healthy dose of usability knowledge... ...and a whole lot of caffeine. In this episode of the Call to Action podcast, Demian breaks down the anatomy of a successful web writer.

Jobs in print media may be drying up, but content marketing has created thousands of jobs for writers. On this new playing field, what exactly does it take to set yourself apart from the army of other content marketers? According to Demian Farnworth of Copyblogger, it takes great determination, a healthy dose of usability knowledge... ...and a whole lot of caffeine. In this episode of the Call to Action podcast, Demian breaks down the anatomy of a successful web writer.

Copywriting with Demian Farnworth — Chief Content Writer at Copyblogger Media Share This Podcast * Click to tweet * Share on Facebook Resources Mentioned * http://thecopybot.com/ * http://www.ProductiveInsights.com/hire * http://rainmaker.fm/series/draft/ Books Mentioned * Scientific Advertising * How to Write a Good Advertisement * Breakthrough Advertising * Tested Advertising Methods (5th Edition) (Prentice Hall Business Classics) * Reality in Advertising * Confessions of an Advertising Man * Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel Related / Mentioned Podcast Episodes: * Episode 001 : Neil Patel (Kissmetrics) On Branding, Investing And Lots More * Episode 003: Jon Morrow (Copyblogger) on How to Use Blogging For Business Success * Episode 006: Chris Garrett (Copyblogger) on Content Marketing For Business Success  * Episode 009: "Blind Man Driving" with Kevin Rogers on Copywriting * Episode 035: How To Use High Leverage Activities To Get Through Your Todo List * Episode 038– Rand Fishkin on How To Create SEO Friendly Content * Episode 044 – Hiten Shah on SAAS and How To Evaluate if The SAAS Model Is For You Key Points (Timestamps) * 1:37  –Demian shares his story as a poet and how it led to copywriting * 3:28 – Why is web copy and copywriting so important for business success? * 4:33 – Writing is involved in all sorts of content including podcasting,

Copywriting with Demian Farnworth — Chief Content Writer at Copyblogger Media Demian Farnworth is an excellent copywriter, and I'm personally a huge fan. He's a chief copywriter of Copyblogger Media where he writes clear, concise and compelling web copy that demands attention, creates desire and compels action. He's also got an excellent podcast called Rough Draft which I recommend you check out. He's the founder of thecopybot.com. Over the last ten years, he's been a content contributor on Copyblogger, Raven Tools, Crazy Egg and Men with Pens. He's the managing editor for a magazine of four hundred and sixty thousand subscribers and is an award-winning blogger for a real estate marketing company. He's learned that ROI is everything as a master of frequent and rigorous testing. Share This Episode Click to tweet Resources Mentioned Click here to download the podcast shownotes http://thecopybot.com/ http://www.ProductiveInsights.com/hire http://rainmaker.fm/series/draft/ Books Mentioned Scientific Advertising How to Write a Good Advertisement: A Short Course in Copywriting Breakthrough Advertising Tested Advertising Methods (5th Edition) (Prentice Hall Business Classics) Reality in Advertising Confessions of an Advertising Man Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel Related / Mentioned Podcast Episodes: Episode 001 : Neil Patel (Kissmetrics) On Branding, Investing And Lots More Episode 003: Jon Morrow (Copyblogger) on How to Use Blogging For Business Success Episode 006: Chris Garrett (Copyblogger) on Content Marketing For Business Success  Episode 009: "Blind Man Driving" with Kevin Rogers on Copywriting Episode 035: How To Use High Leverage Activities To Get Through Your Todo List Episode 038– Rand Fishkin on How To Create SEO Friendly Content Episode 044 – Hiten Shah on SAAS and How To Evaluate if The SAAS Model Is For You Key Points (Timestamps) 2:57 –Demian shares his story as a poet and how it led to copywriting. 4:39 – Why is web copy and copywriting so important for business success? 5:40 – Writing is involved in all sorts of content including podcasting, scripts for videos, etc. 5:59 – The two challenges that all content faces online 6:44 – Discussion around the previous podcast interview with Rand Fishkin on how content and SEO are linked 7:15 – Demian on how he writes engaging openings in blog posts 8:17 – Demian shares an example of an opening he created and how he created it. 9:12 – What tools does Demian use to capture openings and ideas when they strike? 10:09 – The "imagine this" opening that Brian Clarke used to really grab the reader's interest 10:31 – The key elements to great web copy 11:34 – The importance of sub-headlines, transitions and fluidity 12:37 – What do you want the reader to feel or accomplish after reading your content? 13:39 – Discussion around the interview with Eric Enge on the art of creating SEO-friendly content 15:10 – James Altucher is a great example of a writer who really has found confidence in his style of writing. 16:20 – You have to be comfortable in not pleasing other people. 16:49 – The Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule 17:47 – The importance of writing things you're passionate about (Readers feel your enthusiasm.) 18:20 –  "Blind Man Driving" as an illustration of passion for copywriting and how it helps you notice it in day to day life 19:03 – What skills and competencies to look for when hiring a copywriter 23:16 – Why copywriters need to have an understanding of good web design 24:24 – What actions can a listener take to get started with finding good copywriters and/or getting good copywriters. 24:53 – Copyblogger Media has a certified accreditation for copywriters. 25:33 — Jon Morrow's site 'boostblogtraffic.com'

Demian Farnworth returns to Editor-in-Chief to share three lessons he learned from recording 100 episodes of his podcast, Rough Draft. Unknowingly, Demian assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of Rough Draft and had to make decisions that served both his audience and his own production capabilities. In this 20-minute episode, Demian Farnworth and I discuss: Finding... Listen to episode

Demian Farnworth and Jerod Morris join The Missing Link for some real-time fun and expertise about content syndication on LinkedIn. Mica and I welcome two of our favorite people from Rainmaker Digital (Copyblogger), Demian Farnworth and Jerod Morris. These excellent writers and content marketers share the ins and outs of content syndication and some real-time... Listen to episode

Demian Farnworth is one of the Chief Copywriter at Copyblogger Media and took a moment to share his creative habits.

Award-winning designer and marketing consultant Pamela Wilson — who has helped small businesses and large organizations alike create ”big brands” since 1987 — stopped by to chat about what it’s like to run the blog at Copyblogger.com, and her mission to publish impeccable online content. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! As head of the editorial team for Copyblogger Media, she helps guide an abundance of educational content for one of the top online marketing, blogging, and copywriting sites in the world. Pamela’s unique point-of-view comes from the marriage of design, branding, content, and conversion — something she has coined “Customer Experience Design.” In this file Pamela Wilson and I discuss: How Coming Late to Writing Can Work in Your Favor Why Useful Content Creates Priceless Inroads for Writers The Difficulty of Designing a Remarkable Online Presence How Writing Has Become Her Yoga Practice Why You Should Commit to Writing 750 Words a Day The Hallmarks of Great Online Writing Why Picasso is an Inspiring Model for Writers to Follow Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Pamela’s Author Page on Copyblogger Big Brand System Blog The Bobby McFerrin Plan for Creating a Remarkable Business The Write Way to Answer Your Most Pressing Questions by Pamela Wilson 750words.com Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content by Mark Levy Pamela Wilson on Instagram Pamela Wilson on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Pamela Wilson (VP of Educational Content for Copyblogger) Writes Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. Award-winning designer and marketing consultant Pamela Wilson, who has helped small businesses and large organizations alike create big brands since 1987, stopped by to chat with me about what it’s like to run the blog at Copyblogger.com and her mission to publish impeccable online content. As head of the editorial team for Copyblogger Media, she helps guide an abundance of educational content for one of the top online marketing, blogging, and copywriting blogs in the world. Pamela’s unique point of view comes from the marriage of design, branding, content, and conversion — something she’s coined ‘customer experience design.’ In this file, Pamela Wilson and I discuss how coming to writing late can work in your favor, the difficulty of designing a remarkable online presence, why you should commit to writing 750 words a day, the hallmarks of great online writing, and why Picasso is an inspiring model for writers to follow. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, do me a favor and leave a rating or review in iTunes to help other writers find us. Thanks for tuning in. Pamela Wilson, thank you so very much for joining me on The Writer Files. Pamela Wilson: I am so happy to be here. You know, I’ve told you like five times. I’m so happy you invited me to The Writer Files. Kelton Reid: Well, it’s truly a pleasure to have you on, and I can’t wait to pick your brain and get into your file. Pamela Wilson: Awesome. I’m ready. Kelton Reid: Okay. Let’s talk a little bit more about you, the author. For listeners who aren’t familiar with your story — I’m sure that many of them already are — who are you, and what is your area of expertise as a writer? How Coming Late to Writing Can Work in Your Favor Pamela Wilson: So the funny thing is, I actually think I’m probably the least likely writer to appear on this series because I came to writing really late in my career. I like to think that might be helpful for some people who don’t think of themselves as writers. You may have a different area of expertise, but writing really is something that you can learn. We’ll talk about that a lot today because it’s something I learned. It was an important part of my professional development. My history is that I was the person who made writers’ words look great. I was working primarily as a designer, but also as a marketing consultant. In that work, part of what I did was people would give me Microsoft Word documents that had very little formatting in them. It was just basically the words on a page. What I would do is make those documents look fantastic, make people want to read them. I’d pull photos to put with them, format them, give them nice-looking fonts and colors, and all of that to draw people in and make them want to read them. I did that primarily through publication design, magazines, books, newsletters, and things like that. Some online design as well, but primarily print. All my career, that’s who I was. I was the person who made the words look good. I never supplied the words myself. I had this award-winning design business, so I did really well at that part of my career. But no one was asking me to write. Every once in a while, somebody would give me copy and they would forget to give me a headline, so I might write the headline for their copy. That was about the extent of it. That was the most I ever wrote except for emails to clients. That was about all I ever wrote. Back in the late 2009, I started to feel antsy. I had been doing this for a long time, and I felt like I’d figured out this system that worked really consistently for all of my clients to help to build a recognizable brand. It was relatively simple. It wasn’t expensive to implement, and it worked really consistently. Without fail, it always worked. I felt like I had figured something out. I wanted to share it, so I decided to write a book. This was the fall of 2009, and I was obsessed with this idea that I wanted to write a book. Right around that time I found Copyblogger. I don’t know where I had been hiding online. I had not found Copyblogger up until that time, and around that time, I did. Just a few weeks after I found Copyblogger, they launched Teaching Sells. I joined Teaching Sells because I thought, “Maybe this is a way to share my information by teaching it online instead of trying to write a book.” What happened as a result of taking Teaching Sells is, I put together a blog, Big Brand System, and I started writing for it consistently in January of 2010. Really, that was when I started writing. It’s only been a little over five years. Kelton Reid: Wow. I saw you speak at Authority Rainmaker Conference, and it was a truly inspiring session you did there. You talked about customer experience design, which I thought was really, really cool. A lot about content and building that warm, personal relationship. You were doing that online as proof of concept I guess? Why Useful Content Creates Priceless Inroads for Writers Pamela Wilson: I was. One of the things I talked about in that talk was the fact that it was so disconcerting to have this offline business that had worked really well and that I thought relied on having this personal connection with my clients. Then I went online, and I was like, “Well, how am I supposed to have a personal connection with people I can’t even see?” It was a huge revelation to me that, by crafting really useful and approachable and friendly content, you could make that same kind of connection. You could make that connection with your writing. That was a huge eye opener for me. I hadn’t realized that. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I love that. Where can we find more of your writing? Pamela Wilson: You can find a lot of my writing on BigBrandSystem.com, but nowadays, I’m actually running the day to day Copyblogger blog along with Demian Farnworth and Stefanie Flaxman. I write for Copyblogger a lot more than I write for Big Brand System nowadays, so you can mostly find me there. What happened with that is I got this inspiration when I was at this concert way back in 2010, so it was right after I had started my own blog. I went to this Bobby McFerrin concert, and I got hit by a bolt of lightning. I was like, “What he’s doing in this concert is what I need to be doing with my online business.” I got home from that concert and I told my family, “Okay, I need to do something in the office.” I closed myself in my office. I wrote this post and submitted it to Copyblogger, and it was published on Copyblogger, which was a huge moment. It was a very exciting moment for me. Then I started writing for Copyblogger on a regular basis, developed a nice relationship over time, and now, as you know, I’ve been working with Copyblogger as a member of the team. It’s been just a little over a year now. All of that happened because of my writing, because of this thing that I had never done before. Kelton Reid: Yeah. What projects do you have in the works presently? The Difficulty of Designing a Remarkable Online Presence Pamela Wilson: Well, at Copyblogger, the big thing that I’m working on is helping to tell our story in a more cohesive way. As you know, it’s a very complex company that we work for now. The offer is not something that’s easy to sum up in just one sentence. That’s a lot of what I’m working now — how to tell that story in a way that everyone understands the story right away. The one thing that I’ve kind of zeroed in on is that all of our products — whether it’s StudioPress, the Genesis Framework, or the child themes, or it’s the Rainmaker Platform, Synthesis, or any of our educational products, Authority or anything else that’s really focused on helping to educate people on how to run an online, digital-based business — all of those things are trying to help people to build a remarkable online presence. That’s the story I’m trying to tell about what we do as a company. I think that one story kind of brings everything together. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. That’s really cool. Let’s talk a little bit about your productivity. You’re a busy lady with all of the things that you get into on a daily basis. How much time per day would you say you’re reading or doing research? Pamela Wilson: I’ve listened to a few of these interviews before. You do such a great job, so I enjoy listening to them. They’re very inspiring. I hear people answer this question, and they say like, “Oh I spend two hours researching,” or “I spend four hours reading.” I always think to myself like, “Are those consecutive hours?” Because my day never works like that. I don’t have a chunk of two hours or four hours. It just never seems to work out that way. If I added up all of the little slices, I probably spend two hours total, but it’s divided into a lot of very thin slices. I like to listen to audio books while I exercise. I probably spend 20 to 30 minutes reading throughout the day and probably an hour researching things on websites, but it’s five minutes here and five minutes there. Kelton Reid: Right. Pamela Wilson: I don’t have this research hat that I put on and just close out the world and sit there and do my research. I have this alternate universe where I live where I spent all afternoon sitting in a hammock and reading and researching and thinking about what I’m going to do the next day, but I don’t actually live there. That’s not what my day usually looks like. Kelton Reid: No, no. Mine either, as you can probably guess. Let’s talk about before you kind of get into the writing mode. Do you have any pre-game rituals or kind of warm-up practices? How Writing Has Become Her Yoga Practice Pamela Wilson: The weird thing about this question is that I have thought about it. I’ve realized that my pre-game ritual has to do with my body position. This is going to be a weird answer. What I have found is no matter where I am, because I do travel quite a bit, I seem to do my best, fastest, most productive writing sitting in a chair with my legs crossed under me, and my laptop balanced on my knees. I have no idea why this is, but whether I’m here, at home in Nashville, or I’m travelling somewhere, I always seem to sit in that position. That’s how I write. It’s kind of good to have this body position that works. Then no matter where I am, as soon as I sit down, cross my legs, stick my laptop on my knees, I’m in writing mode. It’s really weird, but it’s very consistent with me. Kelton Reid: You’re like a writing yogi. Pamela Wilson: That’s funny. It is like a meditative position. I hadn’t thought about that. My fingers are not meditating while I’m doing that, I have to say. Kelton Reid: Do you have a most productive time of day or locale? Pamela Wilson: Well, locale doesn’t seem to matter as long as I’m in position, so that’s the good news because I move around a lot. That has worked out well to recognize that seems to be what works for me. As far as time of day, I would say first thing in the morning after a good night’s sleep and after I’ve had my morning caffeine is probably the best. Kelton Reid: Oh, yes. Pamela Wilson: I get the most done. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Well, you’re kind of a globetrotter, much like Sonia Simone, so I guess you have to find that perfect locale wherever you may be, be it Barcelona or elsewhere. Pamela Wilson: Right, I think so. Speaking of that, the other thing that I’ve noticed is I get so much done when I’m locked on a plane. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s because you may have Internet, but it’s usually spotty, so you tend to just have that off. You want something to do to pass the time. You end up writing. I do anyway. I always get so much done on planes. Kelton Reid: Austin Kleon said the same thing. Maybe I should fly more. Pamela Wilson: I don’t know what it is. It’s like you’re locked in this metal tube, and you need to do something to pass the time. I was on this flight a few months ago, actually I think it was on the way back from Authority, and I was doing the usual thing. I had my laptop open on the table in front of me, and I’m trying to get all this stuff done. It’s a little bit awkward because you have this person who’s right on your elbow next to you, and you’re just trusting that they’re not looking over your shoulder. I did all my writing. I got it all done, and then just as the flight is ending, she turns to me and says — this was the first thing that she had said to me the whole flight — “I’ve never seen someone use a track pad so quickly,” and I’m like “Okay.” Kelton Reid: Compliment or ? Pamela Wilson: I know. Hard to know how to take that. “I guess you were watching,” so that told me everything I needed to know. Kelton Reid: Do you stick on the headphones while you’re writing, or do you prefer silence? Pamela Wilson: I usually prefer silence. It works better for me to not have anything distracting me. That’s actually something I miss from my design days. When I was working on purely visual things, I used to be able to put music on in the background really loud. I could listen to whatever I wanted, and it would inspire what I was doing visually. I really can’t do that when I write. It’s too distracting. I miss that. I miss my music. Kelton Reid: How many hours would you say you put in when you do settle in for a session? Pamela Wilson: I’d say it’s about an hour. Sometimes it ends up being less. I love it when I can put in a full hour. I can get a lot done in an hour. Because I’m writing but I’m doing a lot of other things, it’s usually not much more than that. I wish it was more, but I don’t usually having more than that much time. Kelton Reid: Are you also of the school of writing every day? Why You Should Commit to Writing 750 Words a Day Pamela Wilson: Oh yes. I’m a huge believer in that. Actually, I have a post going up on Copyblogger, I think it’s actually this week that we’re talking about what I do to write every day, which is I use this site called 750words.com. It’s a very cool site. You basically sign up for it. There’s a small fee. I think it’s $5 a month or something. Then you commit to writing 750 words every day. This is a great length in my opinion because 750 words is long enough to be a blog post, so if you’re a content creator, it’s a way for you to get a blog post written. Oftentimes, I don’t use it for that. I just use it to physically write. To sit in front of a keyboard, put my fingers on the keys, make the move, and make words come out. I find the act of physically doing the writing is what makes the ideas flow. That’s what my post is about actually. That has ended up being a very surprising side benefit, to me anyway. That the act of sitting down and writing every day has actually helped me to come up with some amazing ideas and to solve problems that I could not figure out when I just thought about them. There is something about writing about them that — it sounds strange — but it’s like it allows you to tap into this part of yourself that’s really wise, that already knows what to do, and somehow you make that connection. By writing, those ideas can come out. I wrote about it in this post because it was a surprising side benefit that I was not expecting. It works so consistently now for me that, if I have something that I’m puzzling over and I can’t figure it out, I just kind of say, “Well, I look forward to writing about it,” because I have a feeling as soon as I write about it, I’ll know what to do. Kelton Reid: I like that a lot. We’ll link to the post and to the website that you mentioned as well. Pamela Wilson: Great. Kelton Reid: Do you believe in writer’s block? Pamela Wilson: I don’t. I don’t, because for me, the physical act of actually typing words on your keyboard is all you really have to do. I read this book a while back — and I’m sure someone else has mentioned this at this point in your series — there’s a book called the Accidental Genius by Mark Levy. It’s really about the act of writing and being completely unattached to the end product that you get. That made a huge difference for me when I was getting into the rhythm of writing on a consistent basis. It just made me realize that whatever I wrote didn’t have to be great. It’s more about the practice of writing that counts. A site like 750words.com is a huge help as well. They send you these email prompts. The email prompts basically say, “Look, you don’t have to write a masterpiece. Just write. That’s all that matters.” What I find is, when I write consistently like that, it’s almost like you nurture that connection between your brain and your fingertips. You leave that channel open, and you make a strong connection. It’s just easier to tap into your thoughts and easier to write overall. Writer’s block is just not a problem for me. I have that connection reinforced because of my daily habits and my leg crossing and all that crazy stuff. It just seems to work pretty well. Kelton Reid: Nice. We’ll link to Accidental Genius as well. I’m blanking on who else mentioned it, but it has been brought up before. Now I’m going to find it myself. Let’s talk about workflow a little bit. What hardware or typewriter model are you using? I know you’re not using a typewriter because you can’t balance that on your knees while you’re doing yoga. Pamela Wilson: Yes, writer’s yoga. It’s a little tougher with a typewriter. I had a 15-inch Mac Book Pro, and I just recently switched to a 13-inch because of the travel. It’s a little bit lighter. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: I know a lot of people at Copyblogger use the Mac Book Airs, but I work enough with images and audio and video that I really needed a little bit more power. I do have a Mac Book Pro just for the processing power. Even just moving from a 15 inch to a 13 inch was a huge relief as far as just walking through airports with the laptop on your shoulder because it’s so much lighter. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Do you have some favorite software that you use most for writing and your general workflow? Pamela Wilson: I do. One of the things I discovered a few years ago was how easy mind mapping software made my writing. What I will typically do is — and not for every post, but a lot of them — if I have some ideas, kind of disparate, random concepts for a post, I’ll open up a mind map and start dropping those onto the mind map. Any connection I make to any of the original ideas, I just build a branch and add that connection. My thoughts don’t tend to be organized when they come in. They just come in, and they’re not in any logical order. They’re not presented to me on a silver platter all organized. They come in randomly. So what I’ve found is, if I can put them on to a mind map, that gives me a place to register everything and then move it around and reorder it until it starts making sense. Typically, what I do is take what’s in the mind map, and then I just paste it into a text document and start fleshing out each section. Most of the posts I write start like that. Kelton Reid: Let’s get into maybe some best practices for staying organized. Do you have any tips, tricks, or hacks for us? Pamela’s Hack: Why Less Is More Pamela Wilson: The biggest hack that I have is something that I discovered a few years ago. I try not to give myself such a long to-do list to do every day. It sounds kind of counter-intuitive that you would actually get more done when your to-do list is shorter. What I’ve found is, when I had a to-do list that has seven or eight or 10 things on it, I didn’t tend to get to everything. I tended to only get to a few things. I always way underestimated how long things would take to do. You write your to-do list, and you think you’re superhuman. Somehow time is going to warp for you. You’re going to be able to achieve all this stuff. You forget about all the interruptions that you know you’re going to have, so you write this super ambitious to-do list. Then, at the end of the day, when you only have a few things checked off, what ends up happening is you feel terribly guilty. I do anyway. I look at all the things I didn’t get to, and I feel terrible at the end of the day. What I ended up doing a few years ago is I switched that around. I try to just have three projects to focus on every day. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: Now that doesn’t count things like, of course, I have to deal with email. You and I both end up having to deal with people contacting you on HipChat, for example. At Copyblogger, we use Hipchat to communicate. There are all those things that take time out of your day. But what I’ve found is, counting all those things, I can usually get three other projects done. I try to make a to-do list that’s very realistic and has those three things on it. What ends up happening is, every once in a while, I get to three o’clock and I’m done with all three things. It’s a completely different feeling. You have this list of eight things and you only got three done, so then you felt guilty about the five that you didn’t get to. But when you have a list of only three things and you get them all done, it’s like, “Wow, what am I going to do with this extra time? Maybe I can do something from tomorrow’s list.” You know? Kelton Reid: Totally. Pamela Wilson: That has been a huge attitude shift toward my to-do list. I’ve tried to basically take on less and be very realistic. Kelton Reid: Do you have any best practices for beating procrastination? Pamela Wilson: Deadlines. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: Just deadlines, really. Everything I did when I was working as a designer was deadline oriented. I was doing a lot of print design work, and the designer is only one person in a long process. The client gives you the information. Typically, the client needs to get approvals on whatever you submit. Then it has to be finalized and sent to a printer. A printer actually prints the job. The job has to be delivered. Everything in that process has a deadline, and I got very used to having to hit deadlines. If my business was going to make it, I had to hit my deadlines. That was just a thing I had to do. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: In order to succeed in business, I had to learn to do that and structure my time so that I would be able to hit the deadlines as promised. Then, the other thing is just not wanting to disappoint people. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: You have coworkers or customers, or you have followers. I still write for Big Brand System, and there’s a post that goes up every other Wednesday at 6 am Eastern. Come hell or high water, that post has to go up. I’m sure nobody is sitting there with a stopwatch watching it, but I feel like I don’t want to disappoint anyone. That self-imposed deadline seems to work really well for me. Kelton Reid: Nice. How does Pamela Wilson unplug at the end of a hard day? Pamela Wilson: I work at home, which is always a struggle. You have this siren song of your laptop that’s glowing over there in the corner, and at the end of a long day, a lot of times you end up being drawn back to it. What I do to get away from that is I try to just change location — even if it’s just in my house. I moved to Nashville about a year ago, and we have a house that has a basement. There is actually a space down in the basement that used to be a kids playroom, but now it’s Pamela’s playroom. I have all my art supplies down there. That’s actually a place that I enjoy going, cranking the music, and making artwork and doing stuff with my hands. That’s a huge help — to just go to a different location and do something different than what I’ve done all day long. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: I feel the same way about cooking at the end of the day, honestly. After spending all day in front of a screen tapping on a keyboard or working with a stylus pen, it’s great to go into the kitchen, get your hands dirty, and chop things. I enjoy that as well. We have woods behind our house. There’s a little path through the woods, so I like walking through the woods and reading, all the usual stuff. Then I do watch TV. There’s good TV on nowadays. I do watch it occasionally, but it’s usually my last choice of things to do. Kelton Reid: Sure. Pamela Wilson: It usually puts me right to sleep, so it might take me three days to watch a show that’s an hour long. I watch 20 minutes, and then I’m like zonked. I’m not a very devoted TV watcher unfortunately. Kelton Reid: That’s funny because I have that same malady. Pamela Wilson: I think it’s great to put you to sleep. You just turn it on really low, and it’s kind of glowing over there in the corner. It works every time for me. I think my husband gets frustrated because he’s like, “Oh man, this is going to take forever to get this show watched.” He’s very patient about it. Kelton Reid: Significant others do love when you fall asleep during an important scene, without fail. Pamela Wilson: I know. Every once in a while, I’ll say to him, “Just keep watching. It’s okay. Just tell me what happens tomorrow. I’m really sleepy.” It’s like you give them permission to keep going. Kelton Reid: Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. Let’s talk about creativity since that seems to be such a big part of your life and work. How do you define creativity? Why Creativity Happens Through Action Pamela Wilson: I love this question. I think each person really is going to have their own creative answer. It’s going to be a little bit different. This is very much a designer’s way of seeing creativity. It’s very much about combining things that aren’t normally combined. Combining things in a surprising way or looking at things from a slightly different angle., I’m kind of touching on this theme over and over, but I really believe that creativity happens through action. We have this image of this creative person who’s sitting still under a tree, and this bolt of lightning hits them when they’re sitting there. I don’t think that actually happens. I don’t think we just sit there and suddenly we feel creative. I think creativity happens when we are in motion doing something, like typing on your keyboard, creating some kind of artwork, doing something with your hands, or walking through the woods. I just feel like action is what makes creativity happen. Kelton Reid: Do you have a creative muse? Pamela Wilson: I don’t really have one creative muse I would have to say. I’ve kind of built my whole career out of the ability to tap into creativity all day long. It’s not something that I have to feel inspired about. It’s just a part of what I do. I don’t know if that’s a good answer, but that’s kind of how it works for me for some reason. Kelton Reid: Sure. When do you feel the most creative, personally? Pamela Wilson: That’s the thing, Kelton. I don’t see it that way. I honestly feel like I can be creative all day long. It’s a little bit of an energy thing. Last night, for example, it was getting toward the end of the day. I was finishing up some slides for a webinar that I had to do, and it was going slowly. I walked away, cooked something, had a glass of wine. I relaxed and got away from it. Then I came back to it this morning, and it came right out. It just came together very quickly. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: It’s a little bit of you run out of energy, but as far as actually tapping into the creativity, I feel like it’s always there. The whole muse idea, I just don’t see it that way. It doesn’t work that way for me for some reason. Kelton Reid: Let me ask you, what makes a writer great? The Hallmarks of Great Online Writing Pamela Wilson: This is such a great question. It’s something that I’m thinking about all the time now that I’m helping to run the Copyblogger blog. What we are trying to do at Copyblogger is to become the premier resource for content marketing professionals. We want our posts and everything we put together — so our infographics, our ebooks, everything we put together — we want it to be the most clear and helpful resource out there for content marketers. It’s a big goal. When we’re looking at posts, whether they’re our own posts or posts that we bring in from other writers who we’re working with, I’m always looking for clarity. That’s the big thing. I’m not impressed with people who use a lot of big words or people who string together these very complex sentences. In the end, everyone is busy. If your writing is easy to follow, then it’s better. I always think people need to just get to the point. Spit it out. Don’t stumble. Say it as clearly as you can. Try to make a connection with the reader. That’s what’s going to make you a great writer. Don’t try to impress people with complex sentences and long, obscure words. Instead of impressing them, you’ll just end up losing them. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Do you have a few favorite authors at the moment? Pamela Wilson: Well, Mark Levy’s Accidental Genius. It really changed my approach to writing, so he’s a definite favorite. It’s kind of boring because I read a lot of nonfiction. I’m not reading a lot of fiction lately. I’m not sure why. It’s been a long time since I’ve read fiction. I just tend to read nonfiction. There are so many different things I want to learn. One of the things that I’m reading a lot of lately is books on management. In this position at Copyblogger, it’s really a management position. Even though I had my own business before and I had freelance employees, it wasn’t really a management situation. It was my business, and I was the CEO of the business, passing along information to them. It wasn’t the same situation. Now, I feel like I’m in more of a management position, and of course, I want to rock at it. I want to be really, really good. I’m reading a book right now by a Navy captain named L. David Marquette, and he wrote a book called Turn This Ship Around! with an exclamation point. It’s about how he applied these management techniques within the context of the Navy, which is very much a top-down management structure. His technique is basically putting the power back at the bottom of the structure and sending it upwards. It’s a different approach to management. I love it because it kind of empowers the people who know best what your organization should be doing. Then I’m also reading this book called Reinventing Organizations. That is by Frederic Laloux. I don’t know if that’s how you pronounce his name, but it looks like that’s how you pronounce his name. I have this really bad habit of reading two books at once. In the case of these two, they’re both about management. They’re kind of complementary, so I’m not managing to confuse myself, but I have a bad habit of picking up several at once and starting them. Those are the two that are on my night table right now. Kelton Reid: Cool. Yeah, I’m the same way. I will pick up multiple volumes and really just rotate through and have no idea where I am at any one given time in any tome. Do you have a best-loved quote? Pamela Wilson: This is actually a tough question to answer because I collect quotes. I’ve been collecting quotes for years. There’s something about a really well-formed quote that I just love. It’s that clarity thing. It says so much in so few words. Actually, my last set of business cards from my design business, I got them custom printed with 16 different quotes. Kelton Reid: Oh cool. Pamela Wilson: I used to tell my clients, “Oh it’s like a playing card. Let’s see which one you got.” It could be one of 16 quotes. I couldn’t choose between the 16, so I got 16. One of my favorites — and this is like the story of my life because I’ve had so many new beginnings in my life — there’s a quote that just struck me. It says, “The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.” It’s by George Baker. Kelton Reid: That’s a good one. Pamela Wilson: I love that one. Kelton Reid: Let’s do a couple fun ones. Do you have a favorite literary character? Pamela Wilson: Well, as I told you, I read a lot of nonfiction, so there aren’t a lot of characters in that. I think to answer this one I have to go way back in time. One of the first characters that I really related to and I connected to was a character in a book by Beverly Cleary. I think I read it in third grade, Ramona the Pest. I loved that book because she was always getting into trouble. She always managed to get herself out of it, but she was always getting herself into trouble. She had all sorts of spats with her family and her friends. She just seemed very real. I loved that character. It goes way back in my life, but that was the first one that I felt like I really connected to. Kelton Reid: If you could choose one author, living or dead, for an all-expense paid dinner to your favorite restaurant, who would you choose, and where would you go? Why Picasso Is an Inspiring Model for Writers to Follow Pamela Wilson: I have to tell you, Kelton, this is the question I have most been looking forward to answering. I heard your interview with Austin Kleon, and Austin said something like he’d never want to take Picasso to dinner. The first thing I thought when I heard that was, “That is totally who I want to take to dinner.” Kelton Reid: Nice. Pamela Wilson: Picasso wrote books. We know him for his artwork, but he wrote books. He qualifies as an author that you could take to dinner, right? Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: I would totally take him to dinner because, as a creative person, he is someone I admire so much. I actually wrote a post for Copyblogger years ago about Picasso and about his work ethic. In the process of putting this post together, I did some research. I saw that, in his lifetime, he produced 50,000 unique pieces of art. If you look at his career, if you kind of divide it up over his lifetime, that’s 632 pieces for every year that he was working as an artist. That’s more than a couple of pieces most days, right? Kelton Reid: Amazing. Pamela Wilson: That so inspires me. When you think about the great artists of the world, Picasso is always on that list. If you’ve seen his work in museums, it’s very impressive. But what you’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of pieces that we will probably never see. What I realized when I saw those numbers and when I saw his artwork is that it goes back to this idea that creativity is really about taking action. It’s not about the end product. It’s about actually doing the thing. I’ve always been interested in his work and in his life, I tend to kind of gravitate to his pieces if I’m in a museum. I’ve seen a lot of Picasso pieces, and most of them are amazing. When you see them in person, they’re bigger than you expect many times. The colors are more vibrant. You can almost see his movements in the brush strokes. It’s really impressive to see it in person, but the other thing that I notice is it’s not all good. Kelton Reid: Right. Pamela Wilson: Not everything he did was a masterpiece. There’s something that’s weirdly comforting in that for me. You just realize, “Wow, if I produce enough, if I just churn out enough creative work, some of it is going to be amazing.” If you think about it, 50,000 pieces, even if only 1 percent is amazing, that’s still 500 pieces of artwork that you’ve created that are masterpieces, right? Kelton Reid: Right. Pamela Wilson: Nobody’s going to talk about the others, but it’s the act of creating that much work that helps you to create that 1 percent that really, really sticks out. Kelton Reid: To circle back, where would you take Picasso to dinner? Pamela Wilson: Well, I speak Spanish, so this is something that not everyone knows about me. I was an exchange student in between high school and college. I lived in Columbia, South America, and I learned to speak Spanish fluently. I would definitely take him out to dinner, probably in Barcelona. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Pamela Wilson: We could go out for paella. We’d make a reservation for 10:30 because you don’t start eating until really late. It would be somewhere where he felt like he was comfortable and in his own territory, and we would speak in Spanish. It would be awesome. Kelton Reid: That’s cool. Do you have a writer’s fetish? Pamela Wilson: Would an iPhone count? Kelton Reid: Sure. Pamela Wilson: Okay. It’s the only thing I could name it. So I got a new phone last year and I got one of those big ones, one of those 6 Pluses. It’s the most expensive small piece of technology I’ve ever had in my life. Kelton Reid: Sure. Pamela Wilson: Now that I have it, it’s like my favorite way to read books. Because either I can read them on Kindle or on iBooks, and it’s big enough that it feels like you’re reading a small paperback. I used to travel around with my tablet, and I don’t take it anymore because I just use my phone. Then I have Audible, so I listen to books on audio as well. I would say that’s probably it. I don’t know if that counts as a fetish item, but I think that’s the closest I can come. Kelton Reid: Well, you’ve dropped a lot of great knowledge for writers already in this session. Can you offer any additional advice to fellow writers on how to keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving? Pamela Wilson: Stop thinking about it, and just start doing it. Thinking about it is probably your worst enemy. What you really need to do is put your fingers on your keyboard and move your fingers. If you do that, if you do what I was saying earlier — you kind of assume the writing position — it won’t take long for your brain to kick in and start flowing down into your fingertips and giving you ideas about what to write about — but you have to assume the position first. You have to be in position to receive those ideas. Doing that on a regular basis will help you to keep that connection so that you can keep the ideas flowing. Kelton Reid: For sure. So where can fellow scribes connect with you out there or online? Pamela Wilson: Well, I still want to write that book, so at some point, I will write a book. Maybe I’ll bug you so you have me back on here. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Pamela Wilson: But for now, the best place to find me is on the Copyblogger blog. That’s where I’m writing more than any place else these days. They could also find me on Big Brand System. I’m pretty active on Instagram and Twitter, so I’ll give you both of those accounts. That’s a good place to connect as well. Kelton Reid: Great. Pamela Wilson: I would love to connect with people who’ve heard this and keep talking about creativity. It’s one of my favorite topics. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Pamela, thank you so much for stopping by The Writer Files and sharing some stories with us. It’s been really, really a pleasure. Pamela Wilson: Thank you, Kelton. I appreciate it. Kelton Reid: Cheers. Thank you for tuning in to The Writer Files. Now go write your 750 words. I’m about to do mine. For more episodes of The Writer Files and all the show notes, or to leave us a comment or a question, drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. See you out there.

Have you ever wondered why great writing creates an emotional response in readers? Welcome to another guest segment where I pick the brain of a neuroscientist.   Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By   Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Research scientist Michael Grybko — of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington — returned to the show to help me define empathy from a scientific standpoint. Mr. Grybko sheds some light into the darker corners of our understanding of how to tap into the hopes, dreams, and fears of your readers. If you missed the first installment of The Writer s Brain you can find it here: Mirror Neurons Empathy Maps: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer s Head Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Empathy Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. Welcome to another guest segment where I pick the brain of a neuroscientist. Have you ever wondered why great writing creates an emotional response in readers? Research scientist Michael Grybko of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington returned to the show to help me define empathy from a scientific standpoint. He’ll shed some light into the darker corners of our understanding of how to tap into the hopes, dreams, and fears of your readers. If you missed the first installment of The Writer’s Brain: How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Creativity, you can find it at WriterFiles.FM and on iTunes. In this episode, we’ll discuss how science is changing our definition of empathy, what actors and doctors have in common with writers, how to resist the dark side of empathy, the difference between good storytelling and great storytelling, and why writers need to crawl inside the heads of their audience. Mr. Grybko, welcome back to The Writer Files. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with me about empathy. Michael Grybko: Thank you for inviting me back. Happy to be here. How Science Is Changing Our Definition of Empathy Kelton Reid: Empathy definitely comes up a lot when we’re talking about how about effective writing of any discipline, and I’ll start with a quote from Mark Twain, who said, “The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of this tale and their fate.” I think he’s talking about empathy for sure. Michael Grybko: Yeah. Kelton Reid: It may not be called empathy in particular in fiction writing, but empathy really is — at least part of the definition is — a study in understanding and entering into another person s feelings, inhabiting their feelings. This is definitely what great writers strive for of all disciplines. I think we should start out by looking at some of the definitions from a psychological perspective, at least, so that we can get into that neuroscience piece. Let me start with Oxford English Dictionary’s take from the psychological theory of Lasswitz: essentially, a physical property of the nervous system analogous to essentially the electrical capacity or believed to be correlated with feeling. Now, I have no idea what that means. Michael Grybko: Yeah, that’s a little vague to me, too. But what we’re starting to do is we’re starting to link that empathy has something to do with the brain, basically. Kelton Reid: So that’s what electrical capacity means in the nervous system, okay. In psychology and aesthetics, we have a definition that says the quality or power projecting one’s personality into or mentally identifying oneself with an object of contemplation and so fully understanding or appreciating it. That sounds closer to a layman’s definition of empathy. Finally, that psychological definition is the ability to understand and appreciate another person’s feelings and experience. Michael Grybko: Yeah, and I think that one’s probably the most concise and hits the nail on the head, there. I think all these definitions are good and acceptable, interesting. But now, things are changing a little with neuroscience, because now that neuroscience is involved, we’re really looking at the brain activity and what’s going on in the brain, and what’s the neurological kind of correlates for the empathy. One of the things I think is really interesting is that empathy has been recognized for a long time. Long before neuroscientists really started looking at empathy, humans have recognized empathy and its power and its effects. It s kind of funny, it’s one of these situations where scientists may be finally recognizing and catching up with what everyone else knew for a long time. But what’s interesting now is that we’re starting to understand how the brain works in regards to empathy, so we can start studying it and start understanding some of the deficits and problems with it as well. It’s really interesting. This goes back a long time — your reference to pathos. Why Pathos Is a Good Jumping-off Place for Writers Kelton Reid: Well, let’s talk about that for a second. I think pathos is a good starting place, for at least for writers, because writers and online publishers or marketers, we talk about empathy a lot as the ability to get inside the head of your audience or customers or your readers. Just to go back a step here, I love Eugene Schwartz. He’s this copyrighting guru of yore, but his book Breakthrough Advertising talks a lot about this and about the importance for copywriters to possess sensitivity, foresight, and intuition. We’re all saying the same things, and this was written decades ago, but these are the ability of writers to really tap into people’s hopes, dreams, and fears, and pathos is something that’s been around forever. It’s that technique using rhetoric that writers employ, and many people employ in all disciplines, to inform, persuade, and motivate the audience to feel something, right? Michael Grybko: Right. Yeah, and that reference to pathos — was that Aristotle? It goes back that far? Kelton Reid: Yeah, absolutely. What Actors and Doctors Have in Common with Writers Michael Grybko: And this idea of the concept of emotional appeal — this can be seen in acting. This is what we’re getting at when actors are encouraged to connect with their audience. And what they’re really trying to do here is, is the audience able to empathize with the actor? The more the audience can empathize the actor, the more connected and probably the better the performance, and the more the audience gets out of the performance. Also, I think another example is doctors. They ve often been encouraged to empathize with their patients. You hear about doctors having good bedside manner. I think this is what they’re getting at. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Michael Grybko: So yeah, it’s been around a long time. Only for the past few decades have we really been studying empathy at the neuroscience level. From the neuroscience perspective, the definition has evolved a bit now. One of the key components of empathy, from a neuroscientist viewpoint, is that there are these overlapping brain regions between a subject and observer. So there’s areas that are active whether we observe an individual going through some emotional state or performing some kind of task, or we do that task and go through that emotion ourselves. Are Mirror Systems the Key to Human Empathy? Kelton Reid: Are you now referring to the mirror neuron? I’m not sure what the terminology is from the neuroscience perspective, but that kind of mirror effect? Michael Grybko: Yeah, neuroscientists generally referred to mirror systems, and there’s also mirror neurons. Mirror neurons you hear a lot about. It s become a popular term. But this is a really a specific set of neurons. I ll go into some of the history here, if you want me to? Kelton Reid: Yeah, sure. I’d love that. Michael Grybko: So, I ll share the background and clear up a little confusion. I’ll start off with the discovery of mirror neurons, because that’s what launched the whole idea of empathy and showing that it’s a product or a consequence of neuronal activity. This was a serendipitously discovered phenomenon. A group in Italy, led by Rizzolatti, was doing some work in the motor cortex of monkeys. This was done in the early 90s. They found a group of neurons that were active when the individual performed an action or observed a similar action being performed. Strictly speaking, these are the only true motor neurons that have been classified. Now, most work being done on mirroring and empathy in the brain is done in humans, and we use fMRI. This is something we talked about a little bit in our previous discussion about creativity, this fMRI technique. There’s some limitations to this technique, and the main one is that we are measuring blood flow in the brain. When neurons increase activity, they require more blood. Therefore, we correlate and increase blood flow to a certain area of the brain with increased neuronal activity. But we don’t have the resolution to say whether a specific group of neurons is active. If you are comparing two individuals, one performing and action and one observing one, we can tell if similar areas of the brain are active, but not specific neurons within those areas. For this reason, we usually don’t use the term mirror neurons. We refer to these as mirror areas or mirror systems. Kelton Reid: Gotcha. Michael Grybko: Just for specificity, we really can’t tell if specific neurons are active. The initial work, finding the mirror neurons and the monkeys, really opened the floodgates to this type of research and provided a lot of answers to a lot of the questions neuroscientists have been asking. Continuing this idea of mirror systems, some cool work was done with just touch. So this is another area where we see mirroring. Good examples of this are if you are watching a movie and see a spider crawling up someone s arm or a snake slithering down someone s shirt, and you get the heebie-jeebies. That’s a similar system. You can actually feel that. Some work done by Tania Singer, who is now at Max Planck in Germany, showed that there are overlapping brain areas active whether we experience physical pain or are observing someone else’s pain. She took individuals, put them in an MRI, and gave them brief shock to their hand. Nothing too painful, but just enough, like a pin prick. She observed what brain areas were active. She kept the same individual in the fMRI, and she recorded the brain areas activated. This time, the individual was observing the expression of a loved one experiencing the same stimulus. Interestingly, they found some of the same brain areas were engaged, whether individuals were actively sensing the pain or observing someone else’s reaction to the pain. This was also done again. There’s another study with a feather duster, with similar results. Similar brain activity was seen whether someone felt a feather duster rubbing up against their leg or watched a video of someone having the feather duster rubbed up against their leg. This is still touch and physical mirroring. Most people think about mirroring behavior, and most people think about emotional empathy. There’s usually some component that this leads to humanitarianism behavior. Empathy is the driving force that s pushing us to help individuals in distress and do good things. Kelton Reid: Philanthropy. How to Resist the Dark Side of Empathy Michael Grybko: Yeah, exactly. Although this is true, and this is an effect of empathy, there are some not-so-flattering effects as well. We also empathize anger, stress, and anxiety. Those can have some real bad implications. Empathy gone too far, even positive empathy and love for others, can lead to cronyism and nepotism. If you think of individuals who may be willing to hurt others to help the people that are close to them, and they’re empathizing with the people that are very close to them, they will harm others. A good example of this is some corporate corruption. One of the examples that came to mind was Bernie Madoff, where he was defrauding all these people, yet he had his sons and his family incorporated into his company and he’s really taking care of them. A lot of people are like, Bernie Madoff — how could he do this? He must have no soul. He must not be able to empathize. In fact, he was empathizing, just so strongly with his family that he was willing to hurt other people. Kelton Reid: Interesting. Almost sounds like a cult. Michael Grybko: Yeah. I think there is a lot of that in some of these darker sides of humanity, where we can almost over-empathize with the wrong people. Kelton Reid: Choose who you empathize with. It’s kind of like the force. Don’t go to the dark side. Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. The Difference between Good Storytelling and Great Storytelling Kelton Reid: This is all really fascinating stuff, and I can’t help but turn to storytelling. I know we re not covering storytelling in this episode, but good storytelling is really utilizing empathy. Michael Grybko: I think so, yeah. Kelton Reid: Great storytelling is probably activating some mirror systems. In a sense, what’s one of the takeaways for writers about realizing that the empathy really comes from the other side? Michael Grybko: Right. The key here is that the observer is the one empathizing, so the person reading — your audience — they are the ones that are empathizing with the character or the story. The key is, you want a believable character, or at least their emotions and their reactions to be believable and familiar to the audience. Kelton Reid: This is what great storytelling does. It really taps into that. I guess as online publishers, we really are all storytellers. I keep saying storytelling because it s an important piece in the empathy discussion. Why Writers Need to Crawl inside the Heads of Their Audience Kelton Reid: Let’s turn for a second to online marketing and online content creation. I know I pointed you towards this piece that Demian Farnworth did called Empathy Maps: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer’s Head. He’s echoing the sentiments that I had noted before by Eugene Schwartz. I’ll just pull a quote from out of there: “We all need to know our customers in order to create products that they will actually buy. It doesn t start with the product. It starts with the customer. That means the media you create, be it a podcast, a blog post, a story, an ad, a screenplay, these all contribute to attracting that audience, and as your audience grows you learn more about their needs, wants, hopes, and fears.” I am paraphrasing here, but can empathy help writers of any discipline understand and get inside the heads of their audience and their hopes, dreams, and fears? That s a pretty simple, straightforward way of putting it. Michael Grybko: Again, I think we have to realize what I said before. The observers are the ones empathizing. A marketer trying to empathize with his or her target audience would be really difficult. I think in the Empathy Maps: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer’s Head, this is sort of addressed, the difficulty with this. It’s really important to, as is brought up, to research and know your audience. The more research you can do, the better you know the audience, the more likely you ll be to write a convincing story or come up with good characters and contact and make some sort of emotional contact with your audience. Kelton Reid: Right. That emotional piece is key. One of the facts in there was that these emotional ads outsell informational ones by 20 percent or something. How Marketers Tap into Well-Worn Paths in Our Brains Michael Grybko: Right. I saw that. There’s some research showing that emotional ads, or ads which cause an emotional response in the audience, were much more successful that ads that didn’t. This really isn’t the marketers empathizing with the customer. It’s the customer empathizing with the character in the story that the marketers created to sell their product. What’s going on here is more going back to memory, how we remember things and how we acquire knowledge, and this is something we talked about in our previous discussion about creativity, so I won’t go through all of it again. There are a couple ways to do it. A few things influence the formation of long-term memories, and one of these is repetition — doing something over and over and over again. Another key component is weight, and a great way to add weight to a memory is by attaching emotion to it. I think what’s going on here is the audience is having an emotional response, and therefore, they are associating that emotional response with whatever product is being sold or marketed. Therefore, they are remembering it better. It’s helping consolidate that memory. Kelton Reid: Those are well-worn pathways, in other words. Michael Grybko: Yeah. It’s just creating a stronger memory. When you make an emotional response, if the audience is empathizing with the story line, they’ll just remember the product better or the content of that story better. Kelton Reid: I was speaking with Adam Skolnick about these writing formulas and James Patterson’s MasterClass on writing, where he promises to teach writers how to write a bestseller. He’s clearly learned the formula. The guy has almost 100 bestsellers to his name. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records, etc. There is a formula. Hollywood screenwriters are told there is a formula. Copywriters are often working from formulas as well. Empathy’s a big piece of that. It’s almost like there are these well-worn pathways, because we have all been marketed to since birth essentially. Michael Grybko: Sure, sure. Kelton Reid: But so much of it is really about storytelling. I keep coming back to that, good storytelling. Michael Grybko: Right. I think it comes down to almost manipulating your audience. A good marketer — or a storyteller, or writer, screenwriter, play writer — knows how to get to their audience and knows how to write a character or a story in which the audience will connect through empathy. Kelton Reid: That brings us full-circle back to that definition of pathos, which is pretty apropos. How can writers of any discipline empathize better? The Key to Empathizing with Your Readers Michael Grybko: It would be hard to really empathize, so I think it comes down to doing research to empathize with your audience, unless you re taking the time to really sit down and connect one-on-one with your target audience. If writers are willing to do that, to go that far, then they can start empathizing. You’re empathizing when your emotional response is the same as the person you’re observing. If the marketer or writer is actually getting angry because of something that upset their audience, getting sad because of something, some grief the audience is experiencing, then they’re empathizing. Why Great Marketing Starts with the Desire to Help People Kelton Reid: It s really interesting that you say that, because I think some of best online marketers and online content creators are part of their target market. Michael Grybko: Yeah. That’s a great way. If you’re marketing, sell it to yourself first. Maybe that’s a good way to start. Kelton Reid: You probably are coming up with a solution to a problem that you had. Michael Grybko: Right. Exactly. Is this something that s causing you some distress? Are you solving a problem? Is this something that is going to make your life easier? Save some time? Kelton Reid: No. That’s the good side of the force and the empathy piece. You’re not really manipulating people. You are helping people, and you re empathizing with their struggle hopefully. Michael Grybko: Right. Depends what you re selling. Kelton Reid: Right. Well that is really fantastic. I guess my next question is, where do we go from here? How can we take what we have learned about creativity and empathy and look at the next piece in the neuroscience? What I want to say is, under the microscope, what’s the next piece to look at for writers? Michael Grybko: Okay. That’s a good question. Kelton Reid: Would it be storytelling? We keep coming back to it. Michael Grybko: Storytelling. Yes, I think so. What neuroscientists are looking at now are the consequences of empathy, and it s an incredibly complicated area to study. One of the problems we are running into is when we are talking about emotional empathy, there s a lot of different brain areas involved, a lot of different neurochemicals and trying to find that. Where’s the root of empathy in the brain? There are some good studies going on. I won’t go through all of it, but one of the major chemicals we are looking at is oxytocin, which has been thought of as the love hormone and norepinephrine is another one, and that’s the stress hormone. Neuroscientists now are looking deeper into these questions about consequences of empathy, looking at these more discrete structures, and trying to narrow down the chemicals involved and the areas involved. What we’re finding is, our emotional states actually have a lot to do with our cognitive ability and have a huge influence on it. Certain aspects of cognition fluctuate as our emotional states fluctuate. Also, I think stress is another important one, and that’s something we are looking at quite a bit. We’re looking at a lot of work being done with mitigating stress and anxiety through use of meditation. We re going off into that. I think all of this is important for writers, too, understanding that your audience is going to comprehend things differently depending on their emotional states, stress, anxiety, and depression. Neuroscience is trying to tease this out. It s really interesting, and I’ll have to keep you updated. Kelton Reid: That’s great. I think we should ask those questions, and I would love to have you back to talk about both storytelling and the meditation piece, which is huge right now. I’m very curious about that. I think I read something recently that said that meditation has been shown to change the way your brain is working, so that is really curious to me. Michael Grybko: Right. There’s a lot going on. Actually, Tania Singer — she did the pain study that I mentioned earlier — she’s doing a lot of that now. Now she’s getting deeper into the emotional pain, and she’s a big advocate of meditation. There’s an institute at Stanford that just opened, the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research, and they’re doing all sorts of stuff. Buddhists monks and things like that. Storytelling is obviously — as we kept on touching on the importance to have an emotional connection with the audience, the characters — really interesting as well. Kelton Reid: Great. Michael Grybko: Yeah, I would love to be back and discuss some more of these topics. Kelton Reid: Fantastic. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. I know you guys are getting crushed over there, but I really appreciate it, and we look forward to having you back. Michael Grybko: All right. Thank you for having me. I will talk to you soon. Kelton Reid: Stay curious my friends, and resist the dark side of empathy, if you can. Thanks for joining me for a glimpse into the workings of the writer s brain. For more episodes of The Write Files, or to leave us a comment or a question, drop by WriterFiles.FM, and please subscribe to the shown in iTunes if you have not already. Leave us a rating or review, and help other writers to find us. You can find me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. See you out there.

Writing can be a lonely sport, whether you re running a digital agency, or slaving away on the next great novel. In this week s episode we ll examine the writing process of James Chartrand, a prolific online publisher, copywriter, and digital entrepreneur. It s hard to settle on a specific title for my guest because James wears so many different hats — founder of the popular blog, web design, and copywriting agency Men with Pens — as well as an author, educator, and writing coach. James s many accomplishments have been chronicled in such high profile publications as Forbes, Newsweek, and The New York Times, and we got the chance to sit down and talk shop. In this 26-minute file James Chartrand and I discuss: How Wearing Many Hats Can Boost Your Productivity Why Simplicity Helps You Stay Focused The Cathartic Feeling of Crumpling Up Post-It Notes The Hardest Question in the World Why Good Ideas are Like Fishing The Difference Between Making Friends and Making Money Why Every Writer Should Have a Therapist Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Damn Fine Words James Chartrand on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By   Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! The Transcript How Copywriter and Entrepreneur James Chartrand (of Men with Pens) Writes Kelton Reid: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. These are the Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I m your host, Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer s block. In this week s episode, we ll examine the writing process of James Chartrand, a prolific online publisher, copywriter, and digital entrepreneur. It s hard to settle on a specific title for my guest because James wears so many different hats. She s the founder of the award-winning blog, web design, and copywriting agency Men with Pens as well as an author, educator, and writing coach. James s many accomplishments have been chronicled in such high-profile publications as Forbes, Newsweek, and The New York Times. We got the chance to sit down and talk shop. In this file, James and I talk about how wearing many hats can boost your productivity, why simplicity helps you stay focused, the cathartic feeling of crumbling up Post-it notes, why good ideas are like fishing, the difference between making friends and making money, and why every writer should have a therapist. James, it is a pleasure to have you on The Writer Files finally. James Chartrand: Yeah, no kidding. I m excited to be here. It s cool to meet you and connect with you as well. I m really looking forward to this. Kelton Reid: Excellent! Well I say we dive into the file and get to the bottom of who you are and what your area of expertise is as a writer, if you care to expand on that. James Chartrand: I can. I m James Chartrand. I own Men with Pens, which has a top-10 blog for writers — well, so it s been named several times. I suppose that still counts. I also teach a writing course for business owners at Damn Fine Words. I ve been around for a decade in the industry. I guess I m known as a copywriter. I consider myself more of an entrepreneur who writes. I ve also been called a pro blogger. I ve written several books or ebooks — digital books, whatever you want to call them. I m a teacher — general help, advice. I do lots of things. I did some fiction too once upon a time. Kelton Reid: You wear a lot of hats. How Wearing Many Hats Can Boost Your Productivity James Chartrand: I do. I love my hats. The more hats, the wiser I become. Kelton Reid: Where can we find your writing? James Chartrand: You can find my writing at MenwithPens.ca. You can find me on Twitter, @MenwithPens. You can also find me at Damn Fine Words. I have a lovely newsletter there that I really love. I teach there as well, so I get to have one-on-one contact with a lot of people that become my students, which I really like. Kelton Reid: What are you working with presently? Can you share with us? James Chartrand: Everything. Everything and anything. Like any good entrepreneur, I have 40 projects on the go at any given time. I have three big ones right now. I have an ebook writing course inside Damn Fine Words. I m doing the 2.0 version of that. I m running through everything in cleaning it up and making sure that it s as tight as it can be. I m reworking my entire email marketing strategy at Damn Fine Words. I ve learned some new and cool things recently, so I want to test those out and experiment with them. I ve given myself a challenge of writing 52 posts for Men with Pens. I ve been a little slow on posting in 2014, so I want to get back to that and redevelop that habit of regular posting. Kelton Reid: So you re a little busy these days? James Chartrand: I m always busy. It keeps me out of trouble, eh? Kelton Reid: Of course it does. Let s dive into your productivity with all these balls that you re juggling. How much time per day would you say that you read or are doing research? James Chartrand: I read for pleasure about an hour a day. At the end of the night, just before bed, that s my pleasure-reading time. That s really important to me. It lets me unplug, and it gets me in touch with some really good fiction and some really good books that I have. In my day-to-day work, I m lucky I work maybe four- to six-hour days, so I pack a lot into those four to six hours. It s tough for me to say how much of that time is reading and how much of that time is working. I tend to multitask and do both at the same time. I know it s a terrible habit, but you can t break me of it. If I had to give it a number, I d say I guess I m reading maybe two of those hours and writing two to three hours. That comes up to about a five-hour work day. That would work. Kelton Reid: Before you sit down to write, do you have any pre-game rituals or practices to set the desk? Why Simplicity Helps You Stay Focused James Chartrand: I have a super-simple ritual. I wake up every morning at about 5:30, 6:00. I have my coffee. I do not write. I am just waking up at that time. At about 7:30, I get my kid ready for school, put her on the school bus. Then I just I sit down for a few minutes. I think about what I want to work on right after I get up. I get up. I have a smoke. I hit the keyboard, and I m off to the races. Kelton Reid: Do you have a peak productive time of day would you say and/or a specific locale where you get the most amount of writing done? James Chartrand: I just recently built a custom home — not by myself. I had a general contractor do it. That s not in my skill talents yet, but you never know. I have a beautiful office that I absolutely love. I ve made a point that this is the only place where I write. Its job is to make sure the writing gets done here. I ve trained myself that if I m going to write, I come into my office. My best hours for writing, I d say, are between 9:00 in the morning and 11:00. I get a lot of writing done there. I m awake, I m sharp, and my creativity is high. I can do a lot. When my work is done, when my writing s done, I m out of the office. This is the only place that I ve chosen to write for now. Kelton Reid: Are you someone who likes to listen to music while you re writing, or do you prefer silence? James Chartrand: Oh God no! Silence. Oh my goodness! I have to write with silence. I find any kind of noise very distracting. I ve tried music. It just doesn t work. I find it too distracting for me. It s like words upon words. If you listen to the lyrics, it distracts from what you re trying to do with the writing. I do sometimes keep the TV on very low so that I hear a murmur in the background. But it s more like white noise than anything. Kelton Reid: How many hours per day would you say that you re actually getting words onto a page, excluding email? James Chartrand: To be honest, I d say two. That block between 9:00 and 11:00 that is really highly focused writing. I dive down. I m in the zone. I really don t know what s going on around me until I come up for air. That seems to be about a two-hour period. Kelton Reid: Do you ever take a day off? James Chartrand: Weekends. I didn t use to. I used to work 18-hour days, until one day I fell asleep at my desk and hit my head. It hurt so much that I learned my lesson. Now I make sure that my evenings are off, and I definitely don t write a darn thing on Saturday and Sunday. I find it keeps me a little bit motivated. By constraining yourself and limiting yourself to not writing, you re that much more eager to get back to it on Monday. Kelton Reid: Have you ever come up against writer s block? James Chartrand: Oh my goodness! I don t actually believe in writer s block because that s turning it into a symptom, a thing, a virus you can catch, and that s not the case. Writer s block is usually your own thoughts and mentalities getting in your own way. Have I had that happen to me? Oh for goodness sakes! All the time. I ve had periods where I can t write at all. I ve had periods where I don t know what to write. I ve had periods where I don t feel good enough. I ve had periods where I hate writing because everything has to be so epic, and I just can t live up to that standard. It s all my own personal thoughts getting in the way. You deal with them, and you get rid of them, and you keep writing again. Kelton Reid: Let s talk about your workflow over there. What hardware or typewriter model are you presently using? James Chartrand: I have a beautiful 27-inch Mac that I bought about four years ago, so it s time to be replaced pretty soon. I have a 17-inch HP laptop in the kitchen just to catch up on email and stuff. Kelton Reid: Would you say that you re going to a specific software or a set of software that you use most for your kind of general workflow and writing? James Chartrand: Yeah, I use Word all the time. I just love Word. I m so familiar with it, and I can do anything with it. I just use that all the time as my go-to thing. I m a little bit of an old-school traditionalist, so I shun all these new bright, shiny tools. I have just started to learn that Evernote actually can be effective, so I m teaching myself how to use it a little bit. It s good for keeping lists, so I like that. Kelton Reid: I have heard that it is useful, and I m actually using it a little bit more and more each day, I find. James Chartrand: Yeah, it s one of those things where you have to consistently use it. Otherwise, you just don t because there s other ways that work just as well. Kelton Reid: Do you have any organizational hacks that you can share with us? The Cathartic Feeling of Crumpling up Post-It Notes James Chartrand: I don t. A pack of Post-it notes and a pen — keep several of them around the house in all kinds of strange places. When you re standing in the shower and you have that great idea, you can just reach out your hand and scribble something on your Post-it note and dry it off later. That s my go-to. It s Post-it notes all the way for the win. It s really satisfying when you finish something — you can crush them up and toss them into File 13. I get victory out of that. Kelton Reid: That is a cathartic feeling, isn t it? James Chartrand: I m all about the wins. Kelton Reid: I think if we could find you some waterproof Post-its that would be a fun gift to send over. James Chartrand: I should learn to write on the shower walls. I haven t realized yet that you can actually do that. I keep forgetting that you could just take your finger and scribble something there, and it would actually stay for a while. If it goes away, it will come back the next day on the next shower, but I haven t trained myself yet. Kelton Reid: Do you have any best practices for beating procrastination? James Chartrand: I try not to procrastinate because I realize that this is completely a first-world problem. You only procrastinate when you can procrastinate. I try to get honest with myself, and I fix my shit. If something s holding me back from doing what I m supposed to be doing, let s get real about it. Let s be honest. At the very least, be aware of what s going on in your own head. That s what I try to do all the time. That said, I do procrastinate, absolutely. My two best solutions are a couple of sessions of Candy Crush, Soda Saga — let s go for it. Start with something really small that would only take 15 minutes to do. I actually keep a list of tiny little tasks like that for those moments. I find that if you get started on one little thing, it s pretty easy to go to the next and the next and the next. Before you know it, you ve beaten it. Kelton Reid: I love that. How do you unplug at the end of a long day of writing? James Chartrand: A beautiful glass of red wine. That is my treat. Just one, mind you, just one. I used to have more, but let s not go there. I have my glass of wine. I go outside. I take a deep breath, and I feel grateful for what I have. I feel grateful for what I ve accomplished. I find that makes a really big difference in my productivity and in my outlook. Afterwards, it s just supper. It s sitting on the couch watching some mindless TV. Deadliest Catch and Survivor are the latest things that I m going to. It s brainless stuff, and that s about it. Kelton Reid: Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/platform. Let s talk about creativity, and if you don t mind, your definition of creativity. The Hardest Question in the World James Chartrand: That s the hardest question in the world. Can I just say that? That was a killer. I thought about this all week, and the only thing I can come up with is for me, creativity means the ability to come up with something out of nothing in surprising ways. I thought about it over a wide range of artistic things or those times where I looked at someone s stuff and said, Oh my goodness! That s so creative. It s just because they surprised me so much — that they really had nothing to work with, and what they created ended up being so surprisingly good. That s the best way I can define it. Kelton Reid: In your line of work, I think creativity is probably pretty important to keeping those ideas fresh, no matter what type of project you re working on because again, you wear a lot of different hats. Do you find that you need some specific creative inspiration? Do you have a specific muse at the moment that s driving your creativity at all? James Chartrand: It s more of a motivation than an inspiration. It s definitely my business, my lifestyle. What I have achieved, I want to keep it. And I definitely want more of it. It s simply the fact that if I m not creative, I will not have what I have, so you d better keep it going. Another way that I do find a lot of my inspiration for my creative ideas is that I look to the real world. I go out on the streets. I look at people with brick-and-mortar businesses. I watch what people do in positions of customer service or in their jobs. There s a lot of analogies that can be drawn between real-world stuff and online stuff, or things not to do and things you should do, or different ways of applying certain marketing strategies. I get a lot of inspiration from that as well. I think my earlier posts reflect that quite a bit. Kelton Reid: Let me ask you another question about creativity. When you do you personally feel the most creative? Why Good Ideas Are Like Fishing James Chartrand: I don t know. I guess it s when I am not actually working to be creative, when it s not a job. I find it much more difficult to be creative when I m here and trying to be creative. It happens when you get away, and you re in some completely other environment having some other totally unrelated experience, like you re skiing in the winter and suddenly you get this most brilliant idea. I guess that s the way that ideas go. It s a bit like fishing. You just have to be in the right part of the lake to catch the big one. My best ideas have come when I m not actually trying for them and I m completely away from any possible manner of capturing these ideas on pen or paper, which is usually why that big fish I just caught slips away. Kelton Reid: What, to you, makes a writer truly great? James Chartrand: I have to look at the writers who make me forget that reality exists, the writers who make me forget that I am reading, that I m sitting in this chair, that I m looking at a screen, or that I m holding a book, or that there s a world around me. They re the people who make me forget my reality and bring me into theirs. That, to me, is just sublime. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Who are a few of your favorite authors at the moment? James Chartrand: I m going to list some fiction authors because I don t think I ve yet found any business authors that I really like. I ve found some business books that I like, but I m not sure if I like the authors themselves. I like Patrick Rothfuss both for his writing and for who he is as a person. He wrote The Name of the Wind, which got really popular and became a bestseller. I think he s brilliant all around. What he does and who he is and how he presents himself is fantastic. I love Anne Bishop. I don t know of her — I know her books. Her ability to create a world and bring characters to life is so simple and yet so effective. I ve found myself wanting to know her characters like people. I nearly cry when one of her books is over because I won t hear the stories of that person anymore. I also like Scott Lynch who wrote the Locke Lamora series. He has great characters as well, but he s so clever in everything he does. His storylines, his plots, — I can t even imagine how he comes up with these things. They re so complex and so beautiful. Those are my three. Kelton Reid: Can you share one of your own best-loved quotes with us? The Difference between Making Friends and Making Money James Chartrand: I might be hated for this one. It s a quote from Kevin O Leary of Dragon s Den and Shark Tank who is known to be an aggressive A-type. He said, I m not here to make friends. I m here to make money. I think we need to get in tune with that. I love that quote. It is so cold and unthinking, and cruel even, but it reminds me not to sit here and be a writer and sensitive and caring and generous and give the shirt off my back. I am here to run a business. It s a little bit of my guiding star when I find myself giving too much away or feeling like I m not taking care of myself, but I m taking care of other people. This one reminds me to get back to what I m doing here which is running a business. I am here to make money. You can be generous and you can be business-like together. It reminds of that an awful lot. Another one I really like is in the movie Hercules, the cartoon Disney one. It says, Being famous isn t the same as being a true hero. Zeus said that to Hercules. I like that one because it reminds me tone down the ego. Whoever is famous out there, it doesn t necessarily mean that they re true heroes. The same applies to me. No matter how famous I am, I have to remember to be a true hero at the end of the day. Kelton Reid: Let s do a couple fun ones. Who is your favorite literary character? James Chartrand: Locke Lamora. He is so witty and clever and charming and personable and silly and foolish and brilliant all at the same time. I want to be him. Kelton Reid: If you can choose one author, living or dead, for an all-expense-paid dinner to your favorite restaurant in the world, who would you choose? Where would you take them? James Chartrand: This question always make me laugh because I don t want to fly anywhere. I m an introvert. Actually going out to meet people is a big deal, and I d probably want to stay at home. Do I have to really go out for supper with these people? It would be fun to have a beer with Patrick Rothfuss one day just because he s so witty and sharp and clever. I wouldn t want to talk about anything else but whatever rips off our head. That would be a great casual conversation to have. Kelton Reid: Coo. So you can order takeout and have him over for a beer? James Chartrand: Bingo! He can fly here. Kelton Reid: That s right. We ll fly him in. Do you have a writer s fetish? I know a lot of writers do — I do, admittedly — somewhere hiding there in your office. James Chartrand: I don t. I have nothing. I ve got nothing, man. I made a room with a view. That doesn t really count. I have a picture of a fox behind me to remind me that I m a clever person. I have a little figurine of Sawyer from the television series Lost. If I press the button, he says, There s a new sheriff in town. Y all best get used to it. That s all I ve got! Kelton Reid: That s good enough for me. James Chartrand: I think I keep my fetishes for other areas of my life. Kelton Reid: Very good. James Chartrand: Oh that didn t sound good. I did not mean that. Kelton Reid: Back up. We ll edit that out, or we ll leave it in. Who or what has been your greatest teacher, would you say? James Chartrand: Adversity. I wouldn t be where I am today, I wouldn t be the person I am today, I wouldn t have learned the things I ve learned today without adversity. I hate it that you have to become a better person by living through hard times or difficult experiences, but I love it for everything it has taught me and everything it has made it. So — adversity. Kelton Reid: Can you offer any advice to fellow writers out there about how to keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving? Why Every Writer Should Have a Therapist James Chartrand: I think cursors stop moving and ink stops flowing when people get too wrapped up in themselves and their problems. Truthfully, just give yourself a break. It doesn t matter if stuff is good enough or not. It doesn t matter if anybody likes it but yourself. Even if you don t like it — secretly, come on, you do. Give yourself a break about this. Get over yourself. Get over whatever s holding you back. Get a fix for it. Get a therapist. Every writer should have a therapist. Don t give a shit about it. Just do what you want to do, and nothing else really matters at the end of the day. I see so many getting caught up because they give too many shits in the wrong places. I think it s important to be selective with what you do and how you do it. Kelton Reid: Well put. Where can fellow scribes connect with you out there? James Chartrand: It would be great if people could connect with me on Twitter because I love a good conversation. Boy oh boy, we used to have some good ones on Twitter back in the days. I wish that was there now. It s really lacking. There s a lot of links. I m really trying to get back in touch with people. It s hard. I need people to chat with. If people want to get in touch with me, start a discussion. Say something smartass my way. I ll answer back. It ll be my pleasure. Game on. Bring it. You can find me at Men with Pens. Kelton Reid: Thank you so much for coming on to the Writer Files and teaching us a little bit about your process. It really has been a pleasure. James Chartrand: You are very welcome, and I m stoked to have been a guest. It was great to chat with you, and it was great to do this, so thank you. Thank you to everyone listening for putting up with my rambling. Kelton Reid: Absolutely, and it wasn t. It didn t sound like rambling on this side. It sounded like some really wise words. James Chartrand: There you go. Kelton Reid: Cheers. Writing can be a lonely sport, whether you re running a digital agency or slaving away on the next great novel. That s why it s always so enlightening to talk to other writers about how they deal with the stuff that lives in their heads. If you re not familiar with James Chartrand s fascinating story, you can find a great interview with her by Demian Farnworth on the Rough Draft podcast at RoughDraft.FM. I will link to that in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in. For more episodes of The Writer Files and all the show notes, or to leave us a comment or a question, drop by WriterFiles.FM. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes. Leave us a rating or a review and help other writers to find us. You can find me on Twitter @KeltonReid. See you out there.

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Have you ever wondered how prolific writers summon vast stores of creativity without seemingly breaking a sweat? I would like to introduce you to a guest segment where I enlist the help of a neuroscientist to give us a tour of The Writer s Brain.   I ve invited research scientist Michael Grybko — of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington — to help me define creativity from a scientific standpoint. He will help us to pinpoint where exactly in the brain creative ideas come from, decide if you can teach an old writer new tricks, and test the theory that writer s brains are similar to professional athletes. In this 22-minute file Michael Grybko and I discuss: How Science is Expanding Our Definition of Creativity Why Memory Plays Such a Big Part in Writing Don’t Take Your Typing Skills for Granted Where Creative Ideas Come From Can You Teach an Old Writer New Tricks? Why Staying Curious Is So Important to Creativity Are Prolific Writers Like Pro Athletes? Why “Write What You Know” Is Good Advice Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes This Is Your Brain on Writing Kelton Reid on Twitter Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By   Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! The Transcript How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Creativity Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers — from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid — writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. In this episode of The Writer Files, I’d like to introduce you to a segment where I enlist the help of a neuroscientist to give us a tour of the writer’s brain. I’ve invited research scientist Michael Grybko to come on the show and help us to define creativity from a scientific standpoint. To pinpoint where exactly in the brain creative ideas come from, decide if you can teach an old writer new tricks, and test the theory that writers’ brains are similar to professional athletes. Let me introduce Michael. Michael Grybko: My name is Michael Grybko. I’m a research scientist in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, Seattle. Kelton Reid: Thank you so much for jumping on The Writer Files to talk to us about a few pressing subjects. Michael Grybko: Thanks for having me. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Let’s get into it. Just for starters, the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘creativity’ simply as “the facility of being creative; ability or power to create.” That seems pretty straightforward, but you and I know that’s not quite as simple as that. Michael Grybko: Right, there’s a lot more going into creativity. Kelton Reid: Writers often equate creativity to some mystical jolt of inspiration from the gods. When I got my creative writing degree, there was always this deification of great writers of yore. I’m thinking specifically of Shakespeare of Hemingway. These figures of renown that were extremely prolific, creative to the point where we sometimes question if they’re real, I think. There’s a whole society of people in Great Britain that don’t think Shakespeare was a real person because he invented half of the English language. It doesn’t help that we pass around these urban legends about Jack Kerouac writing a novel in a weekend or the fact that David Foster Wallace wrote a book that was longer than War and Peace. I think as writers, as we’re facing the blinking cursor and wondering where that juice comes from, we’re wondering is it divine inspiration, is it methamphetamines, is it some supernatural jolt of electricity that’s bestowed on mortals? I guess I just want to turn to you, to science. How Science Is Expanding Our Definition of Creativity Michael Grybko: Science is asking some of these questions as well. Specifically, this is a topic that is being dealt with in neuroscience. We’re trying to answer the same question — what is creativity? There very much is a lot of evidence out there showing that this is just a function of our brains. This is a neurological process that’s going on. A lot of it so far can be explained that way. These aren’t some supernatural being or some black magic going on. Kelton Reid: They’re not? Michael Grybko: A lot of this creativity we can explain in just plain old brain function. Kelton Reid: Cool. So we can debunk some of the urban legends? Michael Grybko: Yeah. It is very intriguing. How did Shakespeare do what he did? Creativity as a whole, how did Bach create that much music? In science, we define ‘creativity’ as an idea that is novel, good, and useful. It’s a little broader than the Oxford Dictionary’s definition, where it’s just the ability to create, because that doesn’t really say much. You can create something and it’s not very useful or it just won’t work well. Then the novelty is very important in scientific thinking. Pooling from this wealth of knowledge we store in our brains and making connections between different ideas we have to solve a new problem, or create, write a new novel — that’s what science looks at when we study ‘creativity.’ Just to drive home the point, this is very much a function of the brain. There’s no need to invoke all that folklore into this. It’s our brains doing what they do. Kelton Reid: How much is memory involved in creativity? Why Memory Plays Such a Big Part in Writing Michael Grybko: That’s really the root of it. If you want to talk about creativity, it involves us using knowledge we’ve already gained and applying it in a situation that we may be unfamiliar with to resolve an issue or create something, make something. That’s a really good point. Memory is really key here. You can’t really talk about creativity without talking about memory and how we remember things, and how we use that knowledge in our everyday lives to get through the world, get through our days, and do all the tasks we do. It’s a good starting point to just review memory and how do we get knowledge, how do we remember things, and how do we store this information. This is a huge field in and of itself. There’s just volumes of literature out there on this. It’s very active. You’ll get a good idea just how the brain processes information. Kelton Reid: Cool. Michael Grybko: Yeah. We go through our day-to-day lives, and we’re constantly bombarded by information. I think we take this for granted a lot of times. All the sights, sounds, smells — all the sensory input, it’s just picked up by the different sensory systems, ears, eyes, what have you. All this information is converted into electrical chemical signals. This is the language of the brain, these electrical chemical signals. We’re taking all this real-world input and turning it into a signal that the brain can use. This is called ‘encoding,’ this first step. We’re just encoding all this information, just like a computer code. You need to type things into a computer a certain way so it’ll work. The information about the world we live in gets transferred in these electrical chemical signals, so our brain can use them. That’s the first part of memory, just gathering information and encoding it. Then that turns into short-term memory. Short-term memory really is important for creativity. Short-term memory would be like if your phone rings and you’re drinking a cup of coffee, put down your cup of coffee, and then answer your phone. Then later you hang up your phone, you remember where your cup of coffee was. You remember that. Kelton Reid: I always remember where my cup of coffee is. Michael Grybko: You have a short-term memory problem, Kelton. Kelton Reid: Wait, what? Michael Grybko: Don’t worry, it won’t affect your creativity. Kelton Reid: OK, good. Don t Take Your Typing Skills for Granted Michael Grybko: As you can see, that’s really not important — to store that information long term. A week from now it’s not important to remember where you put that cup of coffee down today to pick up your phone. As we do things over and over again, through repetition, short-term memories can turn into long-term memory. Repetition is one way. Another thing is the weight of a situation. If something is very important, you put that cup of coffee down and then you knock it over and it spills on some important paperwork, a week from now, you may remember where you put that cup of coffee down. Through various mechanisms, we build long-term memories. ‘Consolidation’ is the word for it. It involves the brain moving signals into different areas, these electrical chemical signals. Then neurons take on certain patterns, spatial and temporal patterns. Those certain neurons will fire at certain rates. That’s long-term memory. There’s an actual biochemical change going on in our brains that represents the world we live in. It’s important to point out, too, there’s different kinds of long-term memory. Two important ones are this procedural memory and then declarative memory. Procedural is referred to as ‘motor memory,’ but it doesn’t necessarily just have to be motor skills. It can be something like the route you take from home to the grocery store. Over time, you’re not thinking about it too much. You can do it without involving a lot of thought. Kelton Reid: Do you think that could include something like typing? Michael Grybko: Yes, that’s definitely procedural. Yeah, there’s a lot of tasks that we do every day. Procedural memory is very important for us surviving in the world. A lot of things we take for granted — all these day-to-day tasks — actually take a long time to develop skills. There’s a lot of memory involved. Where Creative Ideas Come From Michael Grybko: The declarative memory, that’s things like facts and knowledge. This is what we really draw on when we want to be creative — this information we have stored about places and events. This is where we start linking these different neural networks to be creative. This is our pool of information. This is where our ideas are coming from, this declarative memory. Basically, the final part of the memory process is the recall process. This is when we draw on these memories and apply them to a current situation. I think the root of creativity lies in the recall phase and how we access these neural networks to utilize the information they code for. One could postulate that the act of being creative involves recognizing connections between loosely associated items in the world that surround us, that this would be represented at the neuronal level by activating weakly associated neuronal networks. Kelton Reid: That’s a lot to take in. Michael Grybko: Yeah, it is. Kelton Reid: It seems like what you’re getting at is that the root of creativity is a combination of all of these different sets of processes that we take for granted. That procedural, remembering how to type, versus the other knowledge portion. Michael Grybko: Declarative, or knowledge. Kelton Reid: Combining that with typing something intelligent into a Word doc lies at the root of combining all of these processes. Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform — the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. Can You Teach an Old Writer New Tricks? Kelton Reid: I guess my final question is, and I know that it seems like you all on the neuroscience side are learning more and more about the brain and neuroplasticity and the idea of can you teach an old dog new tricks, I guess is my question. In other words, can creativity be taught later in life, or can it be improved? Can it be learned? Michael Grybko: These are all really good questions. Hard to answer, but I think yes. Kelton Reid: I like that answer. I asked you like 20 questions, I apologize. Why Staying Curious Is So Important to Creativity Michael Grybko: This idea that we can improve creativity is a hard question to prove, but there is some evidence out there. Just the nature of the brain, there’s the ‘use it or lose it’ principle. You see that over and over again in learning and memory — where it’s really important to keep the brain active. Creativity can be improved upon. The more you try out new things, the more skills you develop, the more creative you’ll become. There’s this important aspect of creativity that I was hinting at it in declarative memory. We have these thoughts in our head that are represented by these biochemical signals, these electrochemical signals causing these neural networks to fire in certain ways. This firing translates to a certain memory. What’s important is to just build up your knowledge base. Basically, the more information you have in your head, the more creative you’ll be — the bigger the pool of ideas you have to draw from. Kelton Reid: Keep the muscles limber, in other words. Michael Grybko: Yeah, keep them limber, and keep building them. Keep reading and trying new things and new experiences. Kelton Reid: I just did an interview with Demian Farnworth, and his main tip, at least for writers, was to stay curious, to keep learning new things. I want to get to an article really quick that probably draws on that from The New York Times. This idea that the writer can be compared to a professional athlete. The title of the article is This Is Your Brain on Writing. I totally geek out on stuff like that. I’m always curious how far are they stretching this research to make this claim that — I’ll just pull out a quote — “A novelist scrolling way in a notebook in seclusion may not seem to have much in common with an NBA player doing a reverse layup on a basketball court before a screaming crowd, but if you could peer inside their heads, you might see some striking similarities in how their brains were churning.” Of course I want to ask you about something like this. When a writer sees this, I think they’re just like, “Yeah, that’s awesome. We’re like pro athletes in our brains.” How speculative is this? Are Prolific Writers Like Pro Athletes? Michael Grybko: I think it’s stretching the original research a bit, yeah. I think this is Erhard et al. — this is a group in Germany — the original article came from. It’s interesting. They came up with this new paradigm to study creative writing and employing this MRI technique while people are engaging in writing. MRI is a brain imaging technique where you measure the amount of blood flowing through a particular area of the brain. We infer brain activity with the amount of blood, if there’s an increase in blood flow in a certain area in the brain. This is a widely used technique. There’s some drawbacks to it, certainly, because, first of all, it’s not directly measuring neuronal activity. It’s looking at blood flow. Then it’s not super accurate. You can tell an area of the brain that’s getting active, but if there’s subtle changes within that area, it’s hard to detect. Then also, it’s a big machine, and you have to lay still. Whatever part of the body, in this case the head, is being imaged has to remain still the whole time. Right off the bat, you can understand it would be impossible to compare a basketball player with a writer. I’m terrible at basketball to begin with, but I can’t imagine trying to shoot a basketball and having an MRI done at the same time, where you can’t move your head. Kelton Reid: It sounds improbable. Michael Grybko: Yeah, it’s hard to make a correlation. What they found, the group in Germany found, what was striking, is this particular area called the caudate nucleus was active during writing. The correlation is made based on this — because this is responsible for some of these procedural memories, what we were talking about before. This is an area that’s active during those times. As we do certain skills that we all have over and over and over again, we just become more and more proficient. As that proficiency increases, we see this area of the brain becoming active, whether that’s typing, playing piano, shooting a basketball, or in this case, writing. This area of the brain was becoming active when they measured creative writers doing their thing during an MRI. If that makes them like a basketball player, I won’t quite say that. Why ‘Write What You Know’ Is Good Advice Kelton Reid: Yeah, but maybe coming back to that ‘use it or lose it.’ I hear so many writers talk about why writing every day is important, and of course, research, research, research. The more you put in there, ideally the more creative you’re going to be. That old other saying of ‘write what you know’ really probably is pretty accurate. Because if you’re researching a topic sort trying to write, say, a historical novel that requires quite a bit of research, it’s probably not going to at least tell the story you want to tell or affect people in the way that you would prefer if you’re not actually doing a lot of research and putting that information in there so that you can draw from that and create something fresh, new, and maybe even surprising. Michael Grybko: Right. Then also just practicing being creative. It’s a hard thing to do. It’s a hard thing to quantify. There’s this aspect of creativity — it gets back to the originality aspect that I was talking about earlier. Whether you’re solving a problem or coming up with a new idea, really what creative solutions or ideas require us to access this information we have stored in our brain that’s represented in these neural networks and to apply it. This may involve making associations between objects or things that may not be obvious to other people. That’s where the creativity comes in. It’s coming up with a novel idea or something that maybe other people wouldn’t see. What we’re linking in the brain — there’s probably a correlation here — where this information we have stored in our brains, we’re making connections on a synaptic level, on a neuronal level. We’re bringing these two different memories that were stored — and they aren’t too well-correlated or associated — and we’re somehow, creative individuals are bringing these together on a neuronal level. Now, these two, what used to be discrete neural networks, are starting to overlap and starting to communicate with one another. It’s an interesting concept, but I think that takes practice. We can see this in something like new synapses forming and bridging the gap between these new networks could be what’s happening here. Could be the root of creativity in the brain. Kelton Reid: Wow, I love it. If I could come up with one takeaway for writers, what would you say? Would it be practice, practice, practice, or read more? Michael Grybko: Both. Kelton Reid: Watch less television? Michael Grybko: Watch good television. Kelton Reid: Watch good TV, thank you. Michael Grybko: Watch creative TV. Do all that. Keep writing. I think it’s really important for everyone — keep trying new things and new challenges. Kelton Reid: Keep learning. Michael Grybko: Yeah, keep things original. Keep putting more information into your heads. The bigger the pool of ideas you have, the more opportunities that you’ll have to be creative, the more fuel you’ll be adding to the fire. Kelton Reid: Alright. My final question to you is, should I stop saying that incantation of the Muses before my writing session? Michael Grybko: No, continue. Kelton Reid: OK, good. Michael Grybko: Does it work for you? Kelton Reid: I have no idea. Michael Grybko: Well, we’ll stick you in an MRI machine. Kelton Reid: OK. We need to research it. Michael, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on and talking about the writer’s brain. Michael Grybko: This was fun. Kelton Reid: Actually, would love you to come back and talk about a couple other issues. Michael Grybko: Personal issues or …? Kelton Reid: No. Michael Grybko: OK. Kelton Reid: I’d love for you to come back on the show and talk about storytelling and empathy at some point. Michael Grybko: Yes. Empathy’s a very exciting field, too. A lot to say on that one, too. Kelton Reid: OK, cool. Thank you so much. Michael Grybko: Awesome. This was fun. Thank you for having me. Kelton Reid: Stay curious my friends. Thanks for joining me for a glimpse into the workings of the writer’s brain. I am going to go watch an episode of Mad Men. For more episodes of The Writer Files or to leave us a comment or a question, drop by Writerfiles.FM. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes, leave us a rating or review, and help other writers to find us. You can find me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers! See you out there.

Copyblogger's Chief Copywriter discusses his dark days as an obscure writer, how his passion of writing evolved, and eventually, landed him the job of his dreams.

Welcome to The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of renowned writers — from online content creators, to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. Great writing is more vital and in demand than it’s ever been. But sometimes writers get stuck — the right words don t appear, we get distracted, or worse, lose interest in our work — and that s when the solitary nature of writing can become a curse. I m here to remind you that all writers have moments of doubt, feelings of ineffectiveness, and droughts where the words won t flow. For writers like you and I to stay productive, creative, and sane, sometimes we just need to take a look at how other scribes find ways keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving. In this episode, I want share the file of prolific online publisher, Demian Farnworth. Between the writing he does for Copyblogger, his personal blog, and his two podcasts that regularly land at the top of iTunes, he promises to … deliver the essential writing advice you need to succeed online. In this 32-minute file Demian Farnworth and I discuss: Why Demian Loves The Writer Files Interview Series How a Poet Learned to Make a Living Online Why You Should Treat Your Writing Like Music Demian’s Secret to His Prolificness Why You Need to Over-Sharpen Your Axe 3 Timeless Ideas that Lead to Enhanced Creativity Why So Many Writers Quit A Single Word that Will Help You Keep the Cursor Moving Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes The Writer Files Interview Series on Copyblogger Influence by Robert Cialdini Demian’s Author Page on Copyblogger.com The Copybot Rough Draft Podcast The Lede Podcast Journalist Michael Kruse Kelton Reid on Twitter Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! The Transcript How Demian Farnworth (Copyblogger s Chief Content Writer) Writes Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour through the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers — from online content creators, to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid, Director of Multimedia Production for Copyblogger Media. I’ve been there in the trenches — from indie screenwriter to online content creator — and I know the battle of the blank page. I’ll be the first to admit that writers are a pretty weird bunch, but we’ve been looked at as conjurers for thousands of years for our abilities to give meaning to thoughts, tell amazing stories, and even sell things. From Aristotle to Don Draper, great scribes have been hailed as heroes since the invention of charcoal. Lucky for you and I, the art of great writing at this critical time in history is more vital and in demand than it’s ever been, but sometimes writers get stuck. The right words don’t appear. We get distracted, or worse, lose interest in our work, and that’s when the solitary nature of writing can be a curse. I’m here to remind you that all writers have moments of doubt, feelings of ineffectiveness, and droughts where the words aren’t flowing. For writers like you and I to stay productive, creative, and sane, sometimes we just need to step away from our keyboards. That’s where The Writer Files comes in. We’ll take a look around and see how other scribes keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving without losing their minds. We may learn a few things about our own process along the way. In this episode, I want to share the file of Copyblogger’s Chief Content Writer, Demian Farnworth. Demian’s a prolific online publisher who’s storied career has spanned from consultant to senior web copywriter and even managing editor for a print magazine. His mission statement is to write clear, concise, and compelling copy. Between the writing he does for Copyblogger, his own personal blog, and his two podcasts that regularly land at the top of iTunes, he promises to “Deliver the essential writing advice you need to succeed online.” Let’s flip through file of prolific writer and podcaster Demian Farnworth. Greetings, Demian. I thought it only appropriate to have you on the show because of our shared work on The Writer Files written interview series over at Copyblogger.com, where you are still a contributing editor to the series, which is very cool. Now, we both have podcasts here on Rainmaker.FM. Why Demian Loves the Writer Files Interview Series Demian Farnworth: Thank you. Yeah, I love doing The Writer Files because it’s a great set of questions. Every time that I do one, the people whom I interview come back with “that was the best interview I’ve ever done.” I’m like, “I’ve got to give Kelton credit because I didn’t come up with the questions.” Of course, the premise is from the Proust Questionnaire. I love doing them, too, because they’re not your typical questions about business, and because we’re in the field of marketing, you can ask the same questions. For me, because it’s The Writer Files, I always enjoy hearing about people outside of their business: “I know that you are many dimensions, so show me more of that.” So that s the reason I like doing those — people walking away and thinking, “That was a great interview.” So, well done. Thank you for sharing that with me. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. It made perfect sense, and you were a good fit for that, and I really love the work that you’ve been doing on it as well. I think we should get into the file of one Demian Farnworth. What do you say? Game? Demian Farnworth: I’m game. Thank you. Kelton Reid: Let’s talk a little bit about you, the author. Who are you, and what is your area of expertise? How a Poet Learned to Make a Living Online Demian Farnworth: The short answer is that I was, or am, a poet who figured out how to make money writing online so that I could make a living and raise a family. I fell in love with marketing and through Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, realized that what I loved doing — which was writing — I was capable of continuing to do it. I could sustain it through what I did in that I didn’t have to succumb to a sense of “this is stale business stuff.” I could actually treat it as art but have it still be useful and still be meaningful to people who have problems and are looking for solutions. Kelton Reid: I love Cialdini’s Influence, also, and I’ll link to that in the show notes. Where can we find your writing? Demian Farnworth: Copyblogger.com. I think if you look up ‘Demian Farnworth,’ you could find all my articles there. I also have a personal website called The Copybot. That’s TheCopybot.com. Of course, you can listen to my writing on my podcast, Rough Draft, where it’s a daily short show about the craft of writing online. Kelton Reid: What are you working on right now, Demian? Demian Farnworth: I’m working on the show. My thought behind the show was I want it short. I want it daily. I want it sequential. I’m treating it like, everything that I’ve learned over the years, I want to systematize it — like start from the very beginning and work through as if I was having a conversation with people. About two or three times out of the week, I write scripts for that and then I record on Fridays. Then also I’m working with Jerod on the show The Lede. We’re doing great little series. We’re calling it the Hero Versus Villains series, where we take popular concepts in the business and marketing world and debate those from a hero position or a villain position. That’s been a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of research, too. Of course, I’m also focusing on what they call ‘adaptive content’ this year for the Copyblogger blog, and that’s a work in progress. It’s probably going to be a year-long adventure because it’s very new to me and it hasn’t quite been defined, so it’s a bit complicated. I’m finding my way through it. We’re out in front of that trend, so we’re getting the chance to define it. That’s been a lot of fun to do, too. Kelton Reid: Let’s spin through a little bit about your productivity. How much time per day do you read or do research? Demian Farnworth: I want to say three, four, five hours. I mean, I wouldn’t say there’s defined time, because everything that I do read, whether books or blogs, is research in my mind. But if there’s acute research where I’m working on a project, probably about two or three hours a day. Kelton Reid: Before you fire up the MacBook or typewriter, do you have any pre-game rituals or practices? Demian Farnworth: I like to work in the morning. I’m just genuinely freshest in the morning, most clear in thinking, probably most productive. I like to spend probably an hour, an hour and a half, reading and meditating and just getting my head clear. Then once that’s done, I get up. I eat — probably I’m drinking coffee, of course — and then I just sit down and write. Kelton Reid: That brings me to our next question, which is, what is your most productive locale for your writing? Demian Farnworth: I guess my desk. I feel very comfortable, like I’m a creature of habit. I like routine, so I like writing at my desk, but I can certainly find different places in our house to do that or at the local coffee shop as long as I get headphones on. Probably my favorite location is my desk in my office in my basement. Kelton Reid: Do you prefer any particular music or silence while you write? Why You Should Treat Your Writing Like Music Demian Farnworth: I like music. I guess just it depends. I remember Jon Morrow — his answer to this question is “silence” because there’s a certain cadence to writing, and I agree with him. But I find my productivity sometimes goes up when I’ve got the right music and the right cadence. Like if I’m working on a rough draft or a first draft of something, it’s usually something that’s like a drum-storm, driving type of fast-moving where it’s pushing me forward and I’m moving forward. But then when I’m in that more careful, precision phase where I’m editing, I like to listen to more instrumental work by Richard James, who’s also known as Aphex Twin for some background. I also like — and I may butcher the name — the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. Kelton Reid: Oh, yeah. I like those guys. Demian Farnworth: Right. I like that. I don’t understand what they’re saying, so it s not like it interferes with my thinking, but it’s very beautiful. It’s melodic and beautiful. Which phase I’m in determines what kind of music. Sometimes I will just shut everything off and write in silence, but that’s unusual. I like music, and I think that in a lot of ways, I treat like my writing as music. I think a keyboard — my keyboard, my laptop — is not any different than the keyboard on a piano. Kelton Reid: I’m going to have to steal that. How many hours a day would you say you spend writing, and I’m not including email? Demian s Secret to His Prolificness Demian Farnworth: I try to get started about 8:00, but it’s usually more like 8:30, sometimes 9:00. I’ll push through till 12, to 1, till 2, depending on how much I have to do and to get done. Of course, there are breaks in between there. My prevailing philosophy about writing is — I share this with a lot of people — keep your bottom in the seat. It’s also to just push yourself. I’m not really into this idea of having work for 33 minutes and then take a three-minute break or whatever — the Eugene Schwartz technique where you have prescribed times. I let what needs to be done dictate that. I reward myself, so I’ll say, “Once I get to this section, I can go up and use the restroom,” or “Once I’ve nailed this closing, then I can get up and go get something to eat.” I bait myself to finish certain work and reward myself then. This is the long way of saying — to answer your question — it could be anywhere from two, three, four to six hours a day. It just depends on the demand of what I’m working on. Kelton Reid: Sure. Do you feel like you write every day? Demian Farnworth: I do. I don’t typically write on the weekends, though. I feel like I need that break, and I appreciate that break. Sometimes I will break that rule, but I like to completely separate myself from what I’m working on over the weekend. Kelton Reid: All right, this is the tough one. Do you believe in writer’s block? Why You Need to Over-Sharpen Your Axe Demian Farnworth: No, I don’t. I don’t believe in it because I think that it’s a cop-out to say that there’s writer’s block. I mean, sure, we struggle with the ability to say what we want to say. We all struggle with the idea of like, “This is a dumb idea, so I’m not going to write it.” Or we just don’t have anything to say, so we’re not going to write. I think writer’s block is this idea of, “I need to write something, but I can’t write it.” If I feel like I’m in that position, then I clearly have not done enough research. It s that old Abraham Lincoln saying where he says, “If I’m going to chop down a tree, I’ll spend 90 percent of the time sharpening the saw,” or I think that’s what he said — or the axe, whatever it is. Almost everything comes really easily if you over-prepare, so that’s what I tend to do. So if I feel like I don’t have anything to say about this, it’s clear I have not done my homework. Kelton Reid: Let’s talk a little bit about your workflow. What hardware or typewriter model are you presently using? Demian Farnworth: I think that it’s a MacBook Air, and it’s the 13-inch screen, and that’s the extent of what I know. Kelton Reid: I won’t push you on that one. What software do you use most for your writing work? Demian Farnworth: I like to work inside WordPress. If like I’m working on something for our blog, whether it’s our blog or my own blog, I will work in WordPress so that we automatically have the code behind the links and all that if I need to share the text version of it. That’s the preferred way, to work straight in WordPress. If I need to, I ll work in Word, and of course, sometimes I work in Google Docs and on the platform medium, but that’s more copy/paste stuff than anything. Kelton Reid: Do you have any best practices for beating procrastination? Demian Farnworth: I think the only thing that I can say to that is that I just do it. Procrastination does not discriminate between something I really want to work on versus something I don’t want to work on. It’ll occur, but it’s more, I think, just laziness than anything. I know that I’ve got to do it, and that’s why I’m a routine guy. I need to sit down. I have my time. I ve got to work, and I ve got to do the work. I know that it’s not going to go away, so I just need to deal with it. I just tell myself, “Whether you want to do this or not, you have to do it.” If it’s something I want to do, I’ll do it first so it’s done and I don’t have it hanging over my head. Other than that, it’s just “sit down and do the work.” Kelton Reid: This is a broad question, but how do you stay organized? Do you have any mad science or methods? I know I’ve seen some photos of your office. Demian Farnworth: Well, yeah. When I do research, the process is like this. As I mentioned, over-prepare. So you’ve got notes scattered everywhere, whether they’re written or in Evernote. Then organize. Bring those notes together. Codify them into one platform, like Evernote. Then I transfer them into the whiteboard so that I can start to see them and see them in place and how these pieces are going to fit in together. Typically, that occurs when I’m working on something that’s large and sequential and long-term. For example, when I did the native advertising series or the Google+ series, that was my very precise procedure because I knew that I had six or seven articles to write on that. I had a lot of material, and I wanted to see how everything fit into place. It’s word-based storyboarding, is the way I’d probably describe it. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Demian Farnworth: I can see it, and then I can just move parts around and say, “That’s going to go there,” and then pile it. That’s how I would organize my work. Kelton Reid: Okay. The last question about your workflow is, how do you unplug at the end of the day? Demian Farnworth: That’s a good question. I try to get up and leave my office, and I try to leave my phone behind and everything. Then I go spend time with my son or my daughter or go for a run or go read a book completely unrelated to work. It’s really those three things: run, play with the family, or read. Kelton Reid: I want to take a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. If you’re looking to easily build a powerful publishing and marketing website that drives your online business, head over to Rainmaker.FM/platform right now and sign up for a free 14-day trial to see if it might be a fit for you. Rainmaker handles all the technical elements of good online business practices for you, including design, content, traffic, and conversion, and does it all under one roof. Head over to Rainmaker.FM/platform right now, and get back to building your online business. All right, let’s talk a little bit about creativity. How do you define creativity in your own words? 3 Timeless Ideas That Lead to Enhanced Creativity Demian Farnworth: That’s a good one. I think creativity is really just bringing two, divergent ideas together. I mean, being creative is experimenting and putting pieces together until they work. That’s such a hard one. I think it was T.S. Eliot who described what a poem was. His metaphor was a chemical reaction where two different elements come together and create something totally new. I think I’ve always probably defaulted back to that definition of creation, creativity. Implicit in that is that idea of experimentation and play and failure, but at the same time enjoying that until you get to a place like, “Aha, that finally works.” Kelton Reid: Okay, so on that note, who or what is your Muse at the moment? Demian Farnworth: Probably music. As a writer, I can’t get away from the connection that when I’m writing something, I want to create an image in someone’s head that they would see with their mind’s eye that could be compared to the way music appears in people’s heads. When I think about the people who inspire me, it’s almost always musicians. Now, I have my favorite writers, but musicians really inspire me because I think there’s something about music that I would like to be able to do, but create as a writer. I don’t play any instruments, so I have to pretend like I play the keyboard or something. Kelton Reid: Right, back to your initial metaphor, which I love. Can you share a favorite inspirational quote? Demian Farnworth: I don’t think it’s inspirational, but my favorite quote for sure has to be Will Rogers. He said, “Never miss an opportunity to shut up.” I say that’s inspirational in a sense because I need to be inspired to listen to people versus always being forceful and being the first one to speak and being quick to answer. I’m inspired by the idea of being silent and letting other people speak and tuning in on who they are, so you only do that when you’re quiet. Kelton Reid: Well put. What makes a writer great in your opinion? Demian Farnworth: Not giving up. I think that’s cheesy, but the reason I say that is because I go back to this idea. I m like, “So let s define what a great writer is. It s someone who, in my mind, passes the test of time — so has a legacy, has longevity, and what they’re saying applies universally. Now, I know in our field, that’s hard to get to because a lot of times, what we’re dealing with is just superficial, time-dominated issues. We could write something that is really meaningless a year later because the industry has changed in some sense. I think a writer is great when they have legs, and they can write about anything, and they write well about it. It’s meaningful, and it leaves a taste in your mouth. Why So Many Writers Quit Demian Farnworth: I think the only way you can get there is if you persevere and if you don’t give up because in the end, it’s really a war of attrition. The episode of Rough Draft for this day is basically describing the state of affairs online and the fact that most people don’t read what you write, yet you have to be okay with it and you have to write anyway. A great writer, I think, is someone who says, “Okay, that’s the environment in which I have to work, so now I have to ask myself, ‘Am I okay with that?'” They have to ask that ‘why’ question. “Why am I doing this? If things are so bleak, why am I doing this?” Then they persevere through that because eventually, you have to master that and become someone who’s well-read and well-respected. You have to persevere, and you have to continue and — I say ‘war of attrition’ — to rise above the noise. Eventually you gain traction. A lot of times, you see people who start out, and they’ve got great traction, but for one reason or another, they stop or they have to quit. So they just die out. They don’t reach the potential that they can reach because they didn’t persevere for whatever reason. It’s perseverance that ultimately makes a great writer. I mean, I think about Herman Melville and Moby Dick. He died a penniless stock merchant, and it wasn’t until like 70 years later that people realized the genius of Moby Dick. He had said, “I wrote the gospel of the ages but nobody is paying attention.” Yet he still wrote. He still wrote within that. I admire that. I think that’s what makes a writer great. Of course, the quality of the writing has to be good. Kelton Reid: Do you have a couple of favorite writers at the moment, online or offline? Demian Farnworth: I admire people like Joan Didion, William Faulkner, and Christopher Hitchens. I admire people who have taken the language and have used it in such a way that inspires and is beautiful — like Christopher Hitchens, for example. I like him because of the way he challenged the status quo, and he made just as many friends as he made enemies. Yet he wrote, and he wrote well. He studied people. I like to also read a lot of 16th and 17th century writers too — I don’t know if I’m going to get this right, but Montaigne. Then online — that’s a good question about current writers you might enjoy because most of what I do online is all research-related. David Sedaris is another guy — he doesn’t write online, of course — but David Sedaris is another guy that I like a lot. I like his writing. When it comes to online writers, the people who I really admire, I think, are a lot of the long-form journalists who tell really good stories. I always fall into those. There s guys like, I think, Michael Kruse. He’s down in Tampa Bay. He started the website Gangrey, which is promoting the idea of long-form journalism and trying to keep it alive. Those guys who do that stuff, I always admire. Kelton Reid: Let’s finish up with some fun ones. Who is your favorite literary character? I know you mentioned a few. Demian Farnworth: I would have to think of probably the most recent one — Hazel Motes, which is in Flannery O’Connor’s book. I think it’s Wise Blood. The reason I mentioned him is because a friend and I, we discussed what an awful character he is, but I think we could all could relate to him in some sense because he was religious, but he fought. I mean, he did some awful things. I think of memorable characters, and I always think of him as a memorable character. Of course, anything by Dostoevsky — any character that Dostoevsky writes about, I think, is a memorable character. Kelton Reid: If you could have dinner, all expenses paid at your favorite restaurant in the world with one author, living or dead, who would you choose? Demian Farnworth: I would probably choose William Faulkner because I think he is the writer whom I admire the most. He’s probably one of the most difficult writers to read in some cases, too, but he also wrote some very compelling, very clear, very simple stories, too. I am not sure that it would be interesting to have dinner with him because if you meet most writers, I think they’re just not socially agile people unless they get sauced up. Anyway, William Faulkner. Kelton Reid: Let’s go to who or what has been your greatest teacher in writing or life? Demian Farnworth: I have to say probably my wife because of the way she helped me develop as a writer. It’s that, “behind every great man ” And I’m not suggesting by any means that I’m a great man, but any success that I have, I can point back to my wife. She’s been the person who’s encouraged me and been the fire underneath my seat to get things done. I’ve looked at her and her encouragement and teaching me to continue in spite of obstacles and rejection and just doing things. We all deal with this stuff, but you continue to move on and not to be so overwhelmed by that stuff. She’s been a great teacher. Kelton Reid: What is your biggest writer’s fetish? Demian Farnworth: Fetish. My biggest writer’s fetish. Man Kelton Reid: If you need some help, mine is vintage typewriters. Most writers have some secret thirst. They collect first editions or self-help books. I feel like every writer I’ve ever met has some strange collection or writing-related fetish — pictures of great writers over their desks like deities. Demian Farnworth: Yeah, so this is lame, but it would have to be books. I like books, and I like to buy books, and I like to read books, and I can’t think of a better way to spend time. I know that’s not really a fetish, and I’m not really quiet about it, but it is an obsession, so I hope that counts. Kelton Reid: Maybe if they are actually made of paper, that could count as a fetish. Demian Farnworth: It really is, and I do prefer that. I do prefer the paper version. Kelton Reid: I do, too, I will admit. Can you offer any advice to fellow writers on how to keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving? A Single Word That Will Help You Keep the Cursor Moving Demian Farnworth: What’s worked for me is simply to continue to feed that fire. I read a quote the other day by Plutarch. He was an essayist, like 100 to 200 AD, so around early last millennium. He said to think of it more as a fire and that you need to kindle that fire. If you want to keep the ink going, don’t let the well run dry. Continue to read. Continue to research. Continue to be curious. The most fascinating and the best writers are those who are just insanely curious and can’t stop. I don’t offer that as advice because it’s something that you can’t really teach. It s something you couldn’t instill in people. I think it’s something that’s found within people. So they’re just naturally curious. To keep that cursor moving and the ink from going dry is simply to continue to read and to consume. The metaphor that I like to use a lot is about being a renegade sinkhole. Everything around you, observe and absorb it. Sinkholes are those phenomena in places like Florida where just out of nowhere, everything collapses into a deep hole within it. I think that as a writer, as a good writer, as you’re moving through your life, you’re absorbing and observing everything. It’s just falling into that hole for possible material in the future, whether you do it consciously or not. Kelton Reid: Wow. I just fell into a sinkhole listening to you talk about that. Finally, is there anything else that you’d like writers to know about you, including where they can connect with you online? Demian Farnworth: Yeah. Listen to Rough Draft and let me know what you think. I’d love their support. I appreciate their attention, and I do not take any of that for granted. Please find me at Rough Draft. Kelton Reid: Excellent, and that’s RoughDraft.fm on Rainmaker.FM. Thank you so much, Demian. I really appreciate your time and for creating your own writer file. I definitely look forward to seeing you soon. Demian Farnworth: Thank you. I appreciate this. Thanks for inviting me. Kelton Reid: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe” — Abraham Lincoln. Some great advice from Mr. Lincoln and also from Mr. Farnworth. Thank you. You can never over-prepare or be too curious. Thanks for flipping through Demian’s file with me. If you enjoyed the inaugural episode of The Writer Files podcast, feel free to leave a comment or question on the website at WriterFiles.fm. Please leave us a rating or review in iTunes to help other writers find us. You can find me on Twitter, @KeltonReid. Cheers! Talk to you next week.

Hey ya'll! I am featuring Demian Farnworth on ReallyGoodReads this week. Demian is Copyblogger Media's Chief Content Writer which means he writes a lot. So, he knows how to establish authority online. He also writes for his site: copybot.com. His podcast rocks. You can find it here: Rough Draft.   Anyway, folks, I know if you are listening and have visited the site that you are interested in some kind of web business and establishing authority online. Please dig in and enjoy the read. I know it will bring you value.   About Copyblogger:   Since January 2006, Copyblogger has been teaching people how to create killer online content — valuable information that attracts attention, drives traffic, and builds your business.   These days, that’s called content marketing.   Today, Copyblogger brings you original, relevant content every week about what’s working right now in online content marketing — for free. And we’re not too humble to say it’s the most popular content marketing and writing blog on the planet.   --SamT

Blogging for business is a great lead generation tool, but are you making the 3 biggest blogging blunders? I had a conversation wit blogging extraordinaire Demian Farnworth of Copybot, and chief writer at Copyblogger Media, some call it the bible of content marketing. I’m a fan of Demian and Copyblogger, so it was a delight for me […] The post Blogging for business: how to do it right and get more customers appeared first on mindful sales.

Demian Farnworth, chief copywriter for Copyblogger Media talks and gives tips about standing out in the media world with Jason Hartman.   Key Takeaways  02:07 – Nowadays everybody has a voice, so in order to stand out you have to keep shaking things up in your work to keep people interested.  10:34 – Rainmaker is one of the great tool that Copyblogger Media has made. And it's like WordPress  without the things that people hate. 24:52 – Infographics are great tools but until the tools get better, it's best to hire an actual designer for making infographics. 33:28 – www.copyblogger.com for Rainmaker and Synthesis programs and www.thecopybot.com for more info about Demian Farnworth.   Mentioned in this episode How to Stand Out in a World of Boring Podcasts by Demian Farnworth www.copyblogger.com www.thecopybot.com

In a world where everyone is trying to increase and improve their online presence, some insider know-how and a platform that does the hard work for you seems pretty appealing. Today's Speaking of Wealth Show sees Jason Hartman speak to Demian Farnworth, Chief Writer of Copyblogger Media about web hosting, creating the best podcast possible and securing a keen, passionate audience.    Key Takeaways 02.11 – In such a full stage, how do you make sure people hear you? 05.06 – The answers you'll get are only as good as the questions you can ask. 10.00 – Challenge what people think and everyone will come away with a wider, fuller knowledge.  11.30 – Rainmaker is a platform designed for those who want to expand their media presence – hassle-free. 18.49 – Getting a strong following takes time. Stick at it and figure out what works for you. 22.40 – Find a way to monetize any fame you've got and it'll be worth the effort. 24.58 – Infographics – only worth doing when you've got money to invest in the right designer. 31.36 – Make your asset pillars work by showing how versatile they can be through different media. 33.35 – For more information, head to www.Copyblogger.com, or Demian's personal website, www.TheCopyBot.com    Mentioned in this episode www.Dribble.com www.DeepDyve.com

Demian Farnworth is a writer. More than that, Demian is a writer’s writer – a guy who has traversed the path to professional penmanship and earned his stripes every step of the way. He's a no-fluff writer. He's the real deal. You want to hear what this expert has to say. Here's what he told On Track Tips concerning copywriting formulas. This stuff is golden: Read more › The post Copywriting Strategy for Small Business Owners – Demian Farnworth appeared first on On Track Tips - Get on Track, Stay on Track | one expert at a time.

Mary King IRS Problem Solving Attorney and co- author of the book Protect and Defend. Mary's career as an attorney began in 1993 after graduating from Stetson University College of Law.   Her career in law has primarily focused in IRS problem solving as well as mortgage foreclosure defense  Dr Sue Ferreira creator of the program, Live Your Retirement Dream, which shows you how to reinvent yourself and generate added income to allow you to LiveYour Retirement Dream.Having reinvented own her life following her Grey Divorce and being saddened by how many millions would be financially side-swiped by the financial crash of 2008, Sue realized the need for such a program, which provides you with an individualized realistic plan to reinvent yourself speedily, enabling you to  achieve and enjoy your Second Adulthood, whilst living your retirement dream  Jacqueline Newman managing partner of Berkman Bottger Newman & Rodd, a matrimonial law firm in Manhattan that practices exclusively in divorce law and prenuptial agreements”  Demian Farnworth Chief Copywriter at Copyblogger Media