NEED HELP WITH MAKING YOUR BUSINESS SAY WHAT YOU WANT IT TO SAY?

As part of my splitting into separate personas: my literary-author persona and my copywriting-business writing-writer persona, I'm launching a new quarterly electronic newsletter on or about November 10th: Wordsy Woman's Business Word News Quarterly.

This electronic newsletter will be designed to help businesses say what they want to say. Each issue will contain a feature story on some aspect of writing or words in the business setting. I plan to cover topics such as social media, legal issues, relationship building, content, and story-telling. Some of them will contain tips on writing headlines, promotions, blog posts, press releases, website copy, and signs. This is just a start and I plan to eventually transition into a bi-monthly or monthly publication.

A business will also be spotlighted in each issue with a focus on how each uses words and writing in providing goods and services. Finally, a quarterly tip and suggested website link or newsletter will be included. Each issue will be short, to the point, and informative.

To subscribe, click here and enter your email address where indicated toward the right of the page. I will start posting editions on that same page to start an archive once I start publishing.

Thank you in advance for allowing me to help your business say what you want it to say!

-The Wordsy Woman

SPLITTING PERSONALITIES

My goal when I started out on my own at the beginning of 2010 was to eventually spend half of my work time on literary endeavors like poetry and fiction and the other half on business writing and editing like writing website copy and e-newsletters and editing dissertations. Three and a half years (thereabouts) and three literary publications in and I'm finally getting ready to morph.

This week, I created my author website: www.jodietoohey.com. I also transformed my Wordsy Woman website to focus on my business writing. I'm also preparing to split my social media presence. People interested in me as an author of fiction and poetry will receive insights, tips, and musings on my Facebook author page and through my author Twitter handle (which I've yet to set up). Wordsy Woman's Facebook page and Twitter account will focus strictly on helping businesses say what they want to say, particularly in marketing settings. I'm up in the air about my Pinterest page and might keep that consolidated as people can just follow the boards which interest them most.

There will be some overlap, of course, but splitting will hopefully help my followers to receive communication from me more suited for their needs. The author "stuff" will be targeted toward readers and other creative writers. Wordsy Woman will be suited for businesses, entrepreneurs, or people in the marketing industry.

This blog will remain but will slowly transition more into the business writing, entrepreneurship, and marketing arenas. For now, my only literary-related blog is my historical fiction reviews blog, but starting a blog chronicling my creative writing ups, downs, and insights is on my list of eventual to-dos.

I hope you'll indulge me with your patience as I make this transition. It's a big project that I've broken into bite sizes pieces I'll feed myself (and, subsequently, you) as time passes.

If you have been in this situation of needing to create two different personas for two different businesses or "hats," please feel free to comment below.

Thanks!
-The Wordsy Woman

TRAIN YOUR BRAIN FOR NOVEL WRITING

When I was a kid, as a way to fall asleep at night, I would picture elaborate "day dreams" in my head. I was always the main character. When I was a teen, these mostly involved imagining how my latest crush would realize his love for me and we would be together. Eventually, I would get to a boring spot and I'd fall asleep.

But, sometimes, if my imagination brought me to somewhere emotional or with a lot of tension or suspense, it would keep me up half the night.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was actually training my brain to write fictional stories. So when I started to write my first novel, I already knew how to imagine the story - the trick was translating it into words on paper. To keep people reading, I just had to imagine the types of things that kept me up at night. And if I find myself getting sleepy, I know the story is going stale.

Now, when I work on my novels, I do the exact same thing but with a keyboard in front of me. I imagine the story in as much detail as possible down to the words used in conversation and I type it.

If you write stories, you may already do this as well, whether you realized it or not. But, if you haven't and you find yourself stuck, give it a try. Just write down what you see in your imagination.

Happy Daydreaming!
-The Wordsy Woman