My absence last week was due to my being at a fabulous workshop in Santa Fe, led by my writing and business coach Steve Roller and attended by seven other copywriters. It was intense, fun and crammed with writing gems. At the end of each day, I felt drained but happy that I was furthering my professional knowledge to help me become a better copywriter and consultant. But more important, I made great personal connections with people who know, like me, the solitary life of a freelancer all too well.
So I'm stepping away from the hard looks I've taken at content marketing, social media marketing and everything else written here to mention a few takeaways I learned last week.
In addition to writing activities, we traveled to a local studio and painted. I'm far from being an artist in that regard, but that didn't matter. It was an amazing opportunity to use another aspect of creativity that didn't involve words. After some "warmup" paintings, the instructor Debbie Purdy gave us free reign on which colors to use, how we sensed using them and where they would take us. It was a little intimidating but very freeing at the same time.
Here was my final creation. Not bad for stick figure-dominant artist:
Perhaps the desert surroundings influence me
Another of the many other valuable things I learned was cultivating authority and credibility by writing a book, which isn't as intimidating as it sounds. If you blog regularly, have a collection of related e-books or just love to put words to paper, then publishing a book isn't that far off. Don't worry that you may not have enough knowledge or expertise about something. You know more than you think you do.
It doesn't have to be published by Random House or some major company. It can easily be accomplished by going to site called Create Space and following the directions there. Just publishing a physical book will raise your cache in the eyes of your audience, and it's a pretty good ego boost, to boot.
Of course, this idea gave me the incentive to write my own book in the very near future. If you have an idea about what you'd like to learn in copywriting or marketing as a travel industry professional, let me know. I'd love to hear what you might need assistance with.
Thanks to Steve and everyone at the Santa Fe retreat. It was worth the time, energy and effort, every single minute of it!