PureBlogging

One of the secrets of being a good writer — heck, probably one of the secrets of being a good anything — is to always have your mind ready to learn. Often these lessons will be things you knew in theory — concepts you’ve read about on personal development books or copywriting blogs. But if you’ve got an open mind, you’ll be able to spot those theories in practice. I’ve been lucky enough to see that happen three times this week, each time with the help of my girlfriend, Alanna.

1. Your (blog, website, television show, column) isn’t a sharpening service. Take your axe elsewhere. This weekend, while Alanna was doing some crafting (she makes jewelry, stuffed animals, picture frames, and a whole raft of other stuff) (actually, I think maybe she makes rafts too), she had an episode of The West Wing on as background noise. In this particular episode, Bradley-Whitford-as-Josh-Lyman was on more of a tear than usual, ranting against the personal development industry and those who write self-help books, complaining that people are foolish to read Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar when great philosophers like Immanuel Kant are, like, right there.

Certainly, there’s no denying the personal development industry has more than its fair share of hacks (”Just pay $24.95 for my book, and I’ll teach you how to save money by avoiding foolish purchases!”). This particular speech wasn’t motivated by the episode’s plot, however, or any of the characters’ story arcs over that season, or really anything other than Aaron Sorkin’s own compulsive need to complain about whatever we mouth-breathing, non-Ivy-League Chalupa Disposal Units are doing to annoy him this week, instead of reading Proust by lantern-light or being highly-paid television writers. It reminded me that what you leave out of your work is probably more important than what you end up with.

The moral: Don’t write something to your readers that isn’t motivated by something they want or need. If you want to get things off your chest, keep a diary.

2. Sometimes, unintended consequences can be the greatest ones. This week the web development company I work with gained a new client, a contractor who’s looking to snag some market share from a competitor whose website has a much higher page rank, and who does a substantial amount of business on the Internet.

Alanna was sitting nearby as I checked out the competitor’s website, and she noticed a “careers” link on the front page navigation. Odd, she said, for a home-improvement contracting firm to have a page on its website dedicated to a call for new employees.

But as I looked at it in light of the overall look of the site — which was confident and uber-professional — I realized that the real benefit of that particular page wasn’t getting more handymen and carpenters on the company payroll. It was letting visitors to the site know that they’re looking at a growing organization. And if they’ve got a customer base that’s large enough to demand a bigger workforce, they must be doing something right… Right?

The moral: Sometimes it’s not about what you’re saying to your customers. It’s about what your customers hear you saying to others.

3. You gotta know when to hold ‘em. More importantly, however, you gotta know when to fold ‘em. I had a wasted day this week. You know the kind. I got a late start, and wound up running errands for much of the mid-morning and afternoon. By the time I sat down in front of my computer, my brain was fried from a combination of LA traffic and big-box-store crowds, and despite my best efforts at getting some serious writing done, all I could count on myself to do was play Text Twist. After a while, Alanna asked me if I’d like to watch a movie with her. I did, and we wound up falling asleep under a blanket on the couch together. It was the best part of my week. Had I continued to sit at my desk, telling myself repeatedly that, okay, this would definitely definitely definitely be my last game, I’d have gone to bed disappointed and underconfident.

The moral: Sometimes, one of the best ways to maintain yourself as a writer is to not do any writing at all.