Now, where did I leave off … In my previous post on this topic, I grumbled about the misconceptions concerning my chosen profession like the 30-year-old curmudgeon that I am.

You didn’t think I’d stop at three misconceptions, did you? Surely, you underestimated the power of my bitterness. This time, I tackle the sneering judgments passed by those unsympathetic creative black holes who have no respect at all for anything rhyming with “pre-dance biter.”

Myth #4: “Freelance writer” is code for “unemployed and delusional.”

When you tell a writer that their job “doesn’t count,” you’re undercutting their professional worth. And just being a jerk. Would it be appropriate for me to stop by your office unannounced and expect you to take a few hours off and come shopping with me? What about if I approached you at your desk and tried to engage you in conversation about laundry?

When I’m working, surprise! I’m working. I’m not hunched over my computer trying to bang out marketing copy for fun. (Even though, yes, I do love what I do.) And yet, my friends/family/boyfriend/mailman/g-chat buddies seem to believe that because I’m not sitting in a stuffy cube farm, surrounded by khaki and potbellies and general discontent, I’m not actually working. Not really.

Myth #5: Freelance writers sit around in their pajamas.

Like any overworked and underpaid career woman, I relish the comfortable cotton embrace of sweatpants at the end of a tedious day. However, at the start of the day, I get dressed – just like real, live people! I even have a designated work space! With a chair! And sometimes, if I’m feeling sassy, I’ll wash my face in the morning! It’s the little things.

Myth #6: Writers are satisfied earning a byline instead of a paycheck.

There seems to be a general misconception that we writers are simply narcissistic simpletons who will be tickled piglet pink by seeing our name in print. I’m not going to pay my rent with bylines, kids. In fact, the only time my byline is at all relevant to my bills is when I write it at the bottom of a check.

I once had a prospective client who was utterly flabbergasted when I quoted her my hourly rate; not because it’s outrageously high, but because I was going to charge her for my time. Writing is a professional skill, just like plumbing. Sure, you could try to save money by fixing your broken toilet yourself. But in all likelihood, you’re going to do a less-than-adequate job and you’ll eventually need to call in a professional. Who will charge you money.

There. Now you understand that freelance writing is a job to be taken seriously, and not a pithy and adorable little hobby. Hopefully, should you meet me at a party, your remarks about my chosen profession will no longer prompt me to fantasize about your demise. Hey, that rhymed. Maybe I should be a poet. That’s probably totally easy.

When Sara Faith Alterman is not tied up with her own client work, she chips in as a copywriter with The Hired Pens. Ask for her by name!

I’ve spent nearly 10 years cultivating a vast and varied cache of writing experience. I’ve written PR and marketing copy, and I’ve worked as a journalist, a lifestyle columnist, a film critic, a comedy writer. I’ve written for print, for broadcast, for the Web. I have published two novels and am working on a third.

Along the way, I’ve also compiled a stinky stockpile of neuroses and insecurities about my professional worth. Why? Because despite all my accomplishments, when I tell people I’m a writer, it inevitably prompts one of the following reactions:

1)     A blank stare, some blinking, more staring, then: “Oh. Cool.”

2)     Some eye-rolling, plus knowing glances exchanged with a third party. “Right, but what do you do for a living? Like, to make money?”

3)     Skepticism. “A real one? Where have you been published?”

4)     Visible perking up, followed by an acutely oblivious insult like: “I’ve always wanted to be a writer. It seems like it’d be a fun way to make some extra money. I got A’s on all of my papers in college, so I know I’d be good at it.”

There are two flavors of mythology about freelance writing: first, what wannabe writers think that their idealized career will entail; and second, how non-writers seem to regard writers. Namely, as chromosome-deficient monkeys throwing words against a wall.

In this two-part post, I’ll debunk these common misconceptions, beginning with three myths propagated by the wannabes:

Myth #1: You’re a great speller; hence, a great writer.

Copywriting is an art; it’s nuanced and precise. For me, there are few greater pleasures than concocting the choicest lingual morsels, molding the perfect phrase to describe a product or a client. My affair with words is torrid, as painstaking and heart-wrenching as any love/hate relationship.

It once took me three hours to write a single sentence for a major corporation’s marketing campaign, because it had to be just so, and I couldn’t quite get the recipe right. It’s not because I’m dumb or didn’t memorize enough SAT words; it’s because copywriting can be excruciatingly difficult.

Myth #2: Writing projects should be fueled by wanton creative passion.

“Write what you know?” Please. I once took a gig writing copy for a cryogenic facility. The only thing I knew about cryogenics was that somehow, somewhere, Walt Disney’s corpsicle was floating around in a tank like a pickled egg. But because I was willing to do a little research, and because I can adapt my writing style, I did a decent job. Well, eventually.

That job involved a lot of crying, rewriting, more crying, whiskey, more crying and then more rewriting. And then more whiskey. You know, as a reward. The ability to write in a variety of styles about a variety of topics is an invaluable skill.

Myth #3: The writer’s word is bond.

A truly great writer is one who can not only write terrific copy, but can take constructive criticism and use it to improve their work.

As a writer, you will be edited. Period. You will be edited not only by people who know what they’re doing, but also by others who majored in English 20 years ago and therefore believe they are silver-fingered masters of wordsmithery. Their writing and editing will suck. It’s inevitable. And yet, they’re your client. They are, unfortunately, your boss, however fleeting the project.

There will always be some yahoo waiting in the wings to take a hacksaw to your utterly brilliant body of copywriting. Can’t deal with edits? Start a blog.

When Sara Faith Alterman is not tied up with her own client work, she chips in as a copywriter with The Hired Pens. Ask for her by name!

Do you ever make yourself laugh? You know, you’re just sitting there having an internal dialogue and suddenly you’re laughing out loud? Strangers (or your business partner) look at you and go, “What?” It’s rarely as funny if you try to explain it, so they just say “Oh” and go back to working or drinking their coffee or whatever.

This is because, as you probably have heard, humor is very personal. What one person thinks is funny, someone else might think is not funny or even offensive.

However, done right, nothing works quite like humor to diffuse a difficult client situation or sell a pair of running shoes. But how is it done right? I don’t know. I’m not sure wit is something you can learn. But one thing is for sure: It has a lot to do with the element of surprise.

That’s why a joke loses its punch the second time you hear it and witticisms fizzle as soon as they’re common enough to acquire an “ism.” Since I’m a woman, I don’t know any good jokes.* However, I can tell you the workplace is rife with overused witticisms, as anyone with a “case of the Mondays” knows.

In Literally, the Best Language Book Ever, author Paul Yeager devotes an entire chapter to this subject under the aptly named heading, “You Thought You Were Clever But … Phrases That May Have Been Witty the First Time They Were Used.”

Here are a few fingernails-on-chalkboard examples …

• Are we having fun yet?
• Are you working hard or hardly working?
• Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
• If you believe that one, I have some land in Florida/a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
• Kids, don’t try this at home.
• No pun intended.
• That’s what she said. (Only Michael Scott can keep saying this.)
• Whatever floats your boat.
• Wouldn’t you like to know?
• I can forecast the weather, too; I just look out my window.

Feel free to nominate your own, then let’s all make a pact to stop saying them.

* Yeager also suggests eliminating sexist humor all together. And, actually, I do know one good joke.

And apparently we’re not the only ones. This brilliant Pringles online ad took home the Gold at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Just what is it about this ad that make us fall to our knees, shake our fists at the heavens and rail, “Why didn’t we think of that!”?

Well, if you’ve been following our blog, you know Dan and I often get on a soapbox about the importance of engaging, conversational writing. You know, writing that sounds like it comes from a real person.

This click ad for Pringles took that idea and pushed it to a whole new level: The entire ad IS a conversation. Click on it and see how far you get. I clicked all the way to the end. I’m not proud of this. But I couldn’t stop at just one click. Or one chip.

* Special thanks to Roland Smart for inspiring this blog entry. Roland is chock-a-block full of good ideas.

Here’s a guest blog post from Thaddeus Van Haltren, who founded The Hired Pens in 1931 and now serves as our senior copywriter emeritus. His current accounts include Richardson & Robbins Plum Pudding and Heinz Mince Meat.

I hear plenty of whining from recent college graduates these days. Seems many of them are having a hard time finding a job. Well, try finding a job in the early stages of the Great Depression with nothing more than an eighth-grade education!

Well, that was the hand I was dealt back in 1930. At the time, my nine older brothers were toiling at the local bouillon cube factory. We didn’t have fancy machinery back then, so my brothers’ job was to individually wrap hundreds of tiny bouillon cubes every day.

It was a tedious responsibility – and later drove three of them clinically insane – but it was work, damnit! And it put food on the table. (Though never bouillon cubes, ironically enough. They were too expensive.)

Anyhow, soon after dropping out of ninth grade, I headed over to the factory to inquire about employment. The manager took one look at my plump fingers and laughed in my face. “You’ll never make it in the bouillon cube industry, my boy. Now go find something else to do with those fat digits of yours.”

How I cried that night! But the next morning, I regrouped and trudged over to the headquarters of Jelke’s Good Luck Vegetable Oleomargarine. They were looking for a customer service representative and agreed to hire me for $3 a week (under the table, of course).

One of my main tasks was surveying our customers to gauge their satisfaction with our vegetable oleomargarine. This involved going door to door for hours on end, asking people if they liked the Jelke product. If they answered in the affirmative, I’d hand them a coupon good toward their next purchase. If they did not like our vegetable oleomargarine, I’d slap them in the face with a chilled salmon I carried in a cooler. Life made a little more sense back then, I suppose.

These days, I feel like I’m inundated with customer surveys. I call Microsoft for technical support; two days later, they email me a request to fill out a survey about my experience. I spend a night in a hotel; soon enough, another survey arrives in my inbox. An oil change on my car … a meal at my local Arby’s … the monthly visit to my proctologist … Well, you get the idea. Too many damn surveys.

What’s the point of this missive? Email technology has made it too easy to conduct customer surveys, and Corporate America is abusing the privilege. I suggest the Microsofts of the world instead hire a few hungry ninth-grade dropouts with a penchant for pounding the pavement and a willingness to fish-slap the occasional dissatisfied customer.

Newly hired employees returning to the workplace in 2010 will be among the most enthusiastic. How can employers tap into their optimism and zeal?

Many of these new workers have previously been downsized, and they may be struggling to regain their self-worth. Enabling them to share their stories and skills will address this issue — and will benefit the company to boot.

For their part, employers who had been forced to shed jobs might just experience a contact high from this rush of enthusiasm. They will soon enjoy rooms buzzing with productivity and a workforce hell-bent on goals that will lead to increased prosperity. The challenge is to perpetuate this excitement, to keep the momentum building, to communicate success, and to revitalize and unify the workplace in the process.

Pumping up Communication Efforts

In the days and months ahead, employers might consider pumping up their internal and external communications efforts. One solution: adopting an online content management system (CMS) to which everyone can contribute as part of a company’s overall communications goals. A CMS can serve to unite the workforce and broadcast the company’s healthy pulse internally and externally.

Empowering employees to contribute content — e.g. giving each one his/her own intranet page — strengthens the company. But the content need not be limited to brief statements about each employee’s background that ends up gathering dust (and boredom) on Web pages no one turns to. Content should be refreshed periodically through scheduled updates.

There is also a value-add incentive here in that content used for internal communications efforts can find its way to external markets. Companies today focus their marketing efforts on feeding the ever-voracious search engines like Google for the purposes of search engine optimization. Who better to help supply content and keywords than those employees who are living, speaking and writing these words about the company they work for every day?

In addition, a company can issue (with the employees’ consent) press releases to hometown publications — as well as business journals, industry and mainstream publications — that highlight the employees’ contributions, activities and accomplishments. These notices contribute to workplace pride.

The Importance of the Editor’s Role

Employee blogs can be treasure troves of content, but must be monitored to ensure they are in keeping with a company’s editorial standards, ethics and goals. Designating an editor — or outsourcing such a task — to review and edit the content is crucial to ensure these professional standards are safeguarded. The designated editor keeps his/her eye on the prize (the published product) and can serve as a voice of reason when submitted content misses the mark.

For instance: A teaching hospital I contracted for had many esteemed doctors on its staff, many of whom demanded to list numerous publications they had written for on their designated Web pages. My task was to limit the numbers of listings, to edit their CVs down to fighting size, and to provide links to outside sources (e.g. prestigious medical journals and other medical websites).

The department administrator couldn’t accomplish this task for fear of political fallout. But as an external editor, I could, remaining fair and impartial. The result: The published Web pages gave everyone a fair shake.

While it may take much more time for the memories of this recession to fade away, one way of keeping the malaise at bay is a strong, vibrant workforce empowered to make a commitment to communicating and contributing to a company’s ongoing success.

When Robert Israel is not working as a communications specialist, he moonlights as a copywriter with The Hired Pens. Ask for him by name!

The other week I found myself stuck in traffic behind a delivery truck. I can’t remember what they were delivering since I was too focused on their motto. In big letters they declared, “WE ALWAYS AROUND.” Then in very small letters between the “WE” and “ALWAYS,” they had painted a little arrow and the word “are.”

I wish I had a picture. And if I did, what 1,000 words would it be telling potential customers? Perhaps:

“We might screw up your delivery, but we’ll find a sloppy fix to make it sort-of right!” Or maybe, “If you want a quality job, we’re probably not your best bet.”

Maybe THEY ALWAYS AROUND because no one trusts them with their deliveries …

Okay, now it’s time for our learning moment, and it is this: Sometimes you just have to admit something doesn’t work and start over. Even if it means pushing back the deadline. Even if it means paying more. Even if it means working late. In other words, a Band-Aid fix is never the right one. It hurts when you pull it off.