As always, I am humbled to be a Medium writer:
It is November ~ the month of promiscuous trees, turbulent moons dressed up in haze, opal leaves layering the smock of earth.
© Iulia Halatz
https://medium.com/blueinsight/november-d22bccf46fad
Charles Vess’ art
What do copywriters do?
Mostly (not) write…
Our lives are made of floating stories. Ours or others. Making them visible is the copywriter’s job.
I strive to make my clients’ stories visible and in doing so I need:
1.The brief.
2.A communication strategy with a view to topics that interest real clients.
3.An objective and carefully designed keyword strategy.
4.The answers to the following questions:
– Do you have a style guide?
– Who is your online competition? Why do you consider them competition?
– What do you sell? (Besides jewelry/ training services/……)
– What is your unique sales proposition?
– What are your company’s benefit statements?
– What are the most common objections to overcome?
– What is your off-page SEO strategy?
– Do you like your site’s voice?
– What primary actions do you want readers to take?
And because content is King but distribution is King Kong:
– How will the content be promoted?
– What social media platforms are working for you?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Content creation is a massive task to tackle. We start with the story without which your business didn’t exist. It might be the simple story of how you get the idea, or how your idea came into being.
Writing is like mining for gold. We need to drill and excavate and blast through a huge amount of rock before we find a vein of gold. Once found … We deliver your content writing, business writing, SEO writing and creative writing with joy as we have a flair for writing in different styles at affordable rates.
I also write poetry, short fiction and I make my stories and endeavors visible in the eyes of the community, as local councillor elect.
I illustrate with Rainy Evening by Todd Cox as our days as writers and copywriters may look like this. Nevertheless, they are still beautiful.
Source: Tumblr.com
I am honored to be a Kintell advisor.
I CAN HELP YOU WITH:
Creative writing
IELTS, ICFE, ILEC, BEC preparation
Intercultural communication
https://kintell.com/advisors/iulia-halatz/creative-writing
I love words. I cherish idioms, jargon, and vernacular language. The most I love is Pan’s Labyrinth or a treasure trove of wordwork. Which blind-numbs my eyes and mind. Then I have the eyesight of Argus and my mind channels the hands of Vulcan.
I have a BA in English language and civilization, and I hold a second degree in economics. I have more than 20 years’ experience in teaching and writing academic pieces about finance, accounting, business, law, marketing. I have created one-of-a-kind courses and tailored product descriptions for my corporate customers.
I am a teacher of English, and I am in love with words. I write stories. Simple stories. About dreams and goals, failure and foible, fallacy and reality, blossoming and withering. And I want to know about your passions and dreams, wishes and hopes, blossoming and flourishing…And the spears from life that make us glint. Even so, I am a dreamer on a cloud. As dreams cost nothing… In ordinary days, I am a word-weaver for stories that build ladders. On the best of days, I follow the seasons by means of bike, skis, or roller-skates. I am grateful to all the colors of the world and to the people who read, laugh, smile, and drop a line here.
– Iulia Halatz
I have answered this at Quora.
Wind, Sand and Stars (French title: Terre des hommes, literally “Land of Men”) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
“When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.”
“I looked about me. Luminous points glowed in the darkness. Cigarettes punctuated the humble meditations of worn old clerks. I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny. Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as a man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.”
“When I look at my life and its secret colours, I feel like bursting into tears.”
― Albert Camus
Art by Edward Okuń.
Also published at Quora.
“We are a country in which words matter, and words can change minds.” – Ken Burns
Here are my 5 copywriting rules. Written in isolation in between blog posts, poetry, product descriptions and SEO auditing.
1. Write the way you talk to your best friend, but in a consistent way. “Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” – Shirley Polykoff
2. Start with the truest sentence that you know. (That is Hemingway, not me.)
If written well, all stories are true. Be authentic and play with your imagination, which will arrange words in different shapes to fill the truest contours of the shortest sentences that you can write. Each line should play off of each other.
3. Strive for balance in your writing. If you feel that your story lacks poise, shape it with the right words. Play with it, and when finished, read it aloud. Your ear will pick up the irregularities you cannot see on paper. I always read and record my poems before publishing. That’s how I spot unpolished lines.
3. Simplicity. First line, second line. The goal of your first line of copy is to get people to read the second line. The goal of your second line is to get them to write the third, etc. Everything you write must be copy. Even if you are writing an ordinary email or a request for an offer.
4. Your copy is about the reader, not about you. It’s OK to write in the first person. That’s how people talk. Nevertheless, in the eyes of the reader, “You” is more powerful than “I”. Who’s “I” and why should I care? I, the reader, care about myself and not about you, the writer.
5. Fill your copy with real-life examples of yourself and your work. Let people know you’re real. Take screenshots of tweets, blog posts, and articles published. They will boost any email, blog post, or landing page.
“A great story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic. Consumers are too good at sniffing out inconsistencies for a marketer to get away with a story that’s just slapped on.” – from Seth
No matter what you sell or do, do it right and well. Even if you don’t sell gold, leave an impression and a mark. Get the job done. If possible, leave a trail of delight that will later lead them back to you. And whatever you do, ask a simple question: Can I get away with it? Can I get away with my story, presentation, or performance? We are all non/artists until we promise ourselves to put our passions into practise and become entrepreneurs.
“Art is what you can get away with.”– Andy Warhol
Excerpt from Get Away with Entrepreneurship written in 2016.
Iulia Halatz
Duy Huynh
I am humbled and honored to have joined a another Medium publication, Blue Insights which now has a space on Quora.
https://www.quora.com/q/blueinsights
Enjoy reading!
As being confined at my home, I have gone through my books now that I will (probably) have more time to read.
Next to my first poems published in the Sudden Denouement Anthology Volume I, there it was the black luster of my graduation paper. In the both I have put my passion and toil, sweat and tears.
My graduation year was one of the worst, being squeezed under job worries, preparation for the Post graduate exams, completing my graduation paper and being caught in a troublesome web of love and pain.
While leafing through my thesis I couldn’t imagine how on earth I had the patience and fortitude to set off upon the journey of the Gods through the Victorian Age.
Must be the love for ideals, love for hope, love for Mythology, love for word-work that helped me swam under all worries aided only by the unicorn-blue sheen of the moon onto the leaves of that forlorn summer.
Presently, I am travelling the world with the help of a sack of books and I am rearranging memories upon their shelves.
Art – Kinuko Craft
My brand-new poem written for Medium.com
https://medium.com/@iuliahalatz
The smallness of the evening
Gives new beatings
In my heart.
Ding-dongs
In the color of the falling night
Dynastic stars support
The sky like so many
Miniature Atlases
I need a bigger one
To hold the
Heavy empty void
Of the soul
I lay myself
To sleep in the arms
Of snow living suns
They can never melt
They keep me going
Like flames
In the blue glass.
Thaw it and
Wisely return to fire….
Some time ago, Exulansis prompted me to start writing and to have penned a place of my own making. Nevertheless, some words are so expensive that we are better left with them unspoken or write them with the ink of a Ghost.
Art – Harald Slott-Møller 1918
About Iulia Halatz
She is primarily a teacher of English. Also her mind is lured by goodies like finance, economics, interest rates, the stock market, as she has a hankering for how the money is made. Nevertheless she is a dreamer on a cloud…As dreams cost nothing… On ordinary days she is a word-weaver for everything and everything that breathes. On the best of days she just follows the seasons by means of bike, skis, or roller-skates. She is grateful to all colors of the world and to people who read, smile and drop a line here, or on her email. Contributing author at Spillwords.com, Medium.com and Anthology Volume I: Writings from the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective.
Another recent request from a collaborator:
“I would like to launch a new product aimed at migrants based here in the UK from Africa and Asia. We need someone to help us set up a webpage/content, payment portal and create a social media targeted campaign. If you can help please get in touch.”
Content creation is a massive task to tackle. We start with the story without which your business didn’t exist. It might be the simple story of how you get the idea, or how your idea came into being.
Writing is like mining for gold. We need to drill and excavate and blast through a huge amount of rock before we find a vein of gold. Once found … We deliver your content writing, business writing, SEO writing and creative writing with joy as we have a flair for writing in different styles at affordable rates.
We keywordly handcraft your inventory of stories and spread it all over.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
– Antoine de Saint Exupery
Don’t build a webpage. Create a yearning for what’s out there…
Art by Daniel Ambrose.
