4 ms·

Going through his portfolio, my sarcastic side trying to find something that will somehow justify for my mind why a person's writing is so good that he gets pai

Going through his portfolio, my sarcastic side trying to find something that will somehow justify for my mind why a person's writing is so good that he gets paid for it consistently. Flip through, see [0] A picture of a boy playing in a puddle with a Washtub on his head, with the caption: "The joy of being five. You've got just 365 days to capture it". Ok, now I get it. (goes to my soon to be 6 daughter and gives her a huge hug, and wish I have taken more pictures, and telling my wife I just got something stuck in my eye) [0] http://getcoleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1_Jessops-Bath-Boy-2.jpg http://getcoleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1_Jessops-B...

oonny 10y ago
the only reason why I upgraded my phone to the 7s. I have a 3 year old. A smart phone + Google photos combination is a pretty good one.
- martin-adams 10y ago
  I got the 7 plus and I can say that I am stunned by the photos I can capture of my son and daughter.
- justonepost 10y ago
  You have a 7s?
  - oonny 10y ago
    ah meant 7 plus
adventurer 10y ago
The real-life Don Draper/Peggy Olson.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Yeah, very evocative. Being not-very-emotional, I always figured that "they grow up too fast" wouldn't hit me, but it has. There is so much more I wanted to provide my son (the oldest, age 7). I wish that I could just put his growth timeline on pause and continue to get to enjoy him, at least until I feel like I've gotten the TODO at least half-way cleared out. 7 years gone by, 7 more years and he'll be 14. Half of his childhood already slipped through the hourglass and I barely noticed it. Can't take it. Same story with his siblings. It seems that no matter how much time you spend with them, it will always feel like it evaporated, and there will always be stuff you wanted to do but couldn't get to. I don't expect that to change, but the sadness in that slippage is profound. I hope the future, where they're all old people, is somehow competitive with the present. Hard to conceive how that could happen right now. Speaking of something in eyes...
- bernardlunn 10y ago
  This Cat Stevens song always brings something to the eyes. https://youtu.be/7OqwKfgLaeA https://youtu.be/7OqwKfgLaeA
  - bernardlunn 10y ago
    And another great wordsmith on the same subject: https://youtu.be/1X3PWBFdFIY https://youtu.be/1X3PWBFdFIY Enjoy now
  - muzster 10y ago
    This is not a Cat Stevens song. However, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam did write "Father & Son" - which brings tears to my eyes... when I think of my son and my dad.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    I was introduced to that song through the Ugly Kid Joe cover when in my teens, and it could make me cry then. Now, with my own children, I might just weep if I listened to it in its entirety.
- forestriver 10y ago
  You sound like a really good parent. I wish My Dad had been like that
bernardlunn 10y ago
Being a wordsmith, not a code smith, the view that words are just content to be monetized is wrong. This guy uses words to evoke emotions as novelists and poets have done for centuries and that has value.
kristianc 10y ago
For exactly that reason. The job of a copywriter is to find the 'essential truth' in an image that could as banal as a five year old playing with a washtub. That essential truth has to be something that a large number of people can 'get' within two seconds on reading it and require no further context or explanation. And it has to be patently non-obvious or cliched. It's not enough to say 'they grow up fast.' There are also tricks of the trade in the way he has structured the sentence that you're probably not even consciously aware of - such as the punchline of 'capture it' being left to the end of the sentence so you have to read the whole thing to understand it. Or the simple, evocative 'The joy of being five', which brings to mind all sorts of associations and sets the context for the punchline. 'Imagine what it's like being a child' doesn't have the same impact, does it? If that sounds simple - try doing the same with a random image from Google Images or something you've seen in the news. You'll find that it's not easy. Copywriting is an art like any other.
- mcculley 10y ago
  Is there a good book on copywriting that you could recommend?
  - kristianc 10y ago
    I love 'Comedy Writing for Late Night TV' by Joe Toplyn which is a 'behind the curtain' look at writing for late night TV and what makes certain lines 'work' and what doesn't. It's writing to be funny, but the principles you write to be funny are actually fairly similar to those you just use for good copywriting generally. I liked his 'Surprise Theory of Comedy', used by the line above in fact. https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-Short-Form/dp/0615953891 https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-S... A lot of great writers end up writing for comedy shows - if you end up in a writing team you get both the promise of a regular paycheck and a constant creative challenge creating lines around new news stories. The 'magic' of copywriting is really knowing maybe twenty really useful mental tools inside out, and executing on them the best way possible. What you tend to find with copywriting is that everyone recommends the same seven books - Cialdini, D&AD etc, I guess like with programming where everyone suggests you read Code Complete - but a lot of them are quite long in the tooth, and have an annoying tendency to just hold lines up and say 'here, this is great copywriting', rather than really break down what makes lines work. That said if you're really brand new to it I'd recommend Hey Whipple, Squeeze This as a good starter for 10. Online, ComedyWire is probably one of the best examples I've seen both for seeing great writers at work and practicing yourself. It's kind of like Hacker News for Comedy - people submit lines in response to news stories and the best ones get upvoted.

oonny 10y ago

the only reason why I upgraded my phone to the 7s. I have a 3 year old. A smart phone + Google photos combination is a pretty good one.

martin-adams 10y ago
I got the 7 plus and I can say that I am stunned by the photos I can capture of my son and daughter.
justonepost 10y ago
You have a 7s?
- oonny 10y ago
  ah meant 7 plus

adventurer 10y ago

The real-life Don Draper/Peggy Olson.

cookiecaper 10y ago

Yeah, very evocative. Being not-very-emotional, I always figured that "they grow up too fast" wouldn't hit me, but it has. There is so much more I wanted to provide my son (the oldest, age 7). I wish that I could just put his growth timeline on pause and continue to get to enjoy him, at least until I feel like I've gotten the TODO at least half-way cleared out. 7 years gone by, 7 more years and he'll be 14. Half of his childhood already slipped through the hourglass and I barely noticed it. Can't take it. Same story with his siblings. It seems that no matter how much time you spend with them, it will always feel like it evaporated, and there will always be stuff you wanted to do but couldn't get to. I don't expect that to change, but the sadness in that slippage is profound. I hope the future, where they're all old people, is somehow competitive with the present. Hard to conceive how that could happen right now. Speaking of something in eyes...

bernardlunn 10y ago
This Cat Stevens song always brings something to the eyes. https://youtu.be/7OqwKfgLaeA https://youtu.be/7OqwKfgLaeA
- bernardlunn 10y ago
  And another great wordsmith on the same subject: https://youtu.be/1X3PWBFdFIY https://youtu.be/1X3PWBFdFIY Enjoy now
- muzster 10y ago
  This is not a Cat Stevens song. However, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam did write "Father & Son" - which brings tears to my eyes... when I think of my son and my dad.
- kbenson 10y ago
  I was introduced to that song through the Ugly Kid Joe cover when in my teens, and it could make me cry then. Now, with my own children, I might just weep if I listened to it in its entirety.
forestriver 10y ago
You sound like a really good parent. I wish My Dad had been like that

bernardlunn 10y ago

Being a wordsmith, not a code smith, the view that words are just content to be monetized is wrong. This guy uses words to evoke emotions as novelists and poets have done for centuries and that has value.

kristianc 10y ago

For exactly that reason. The job of a copywriter is to find the 'essential truth' in an image that could as banal as a five year old playing with a washtub. That essential truth has to be something that a large number of people can 'get' within two seconds on reading it and require no further context or explanation. And it has to be patently non-obvious or cliched. It's not enough to say 'they grow up fast.' There are also tricks of the trade in the way he has structured the sentence that you're probably not even consciously aware of - such as the punchline of 'capture it' being left to the end of the sentence so you have to read the whole thing to understand it. Or the simple, evocative 'The joy of being five', which brings to mind all sorts of associations and sets the context for the punchline. 'Imagine what it's like being a child' doesn't have the same impact, does it? If that sounds simple - try doing the same with a random image from Google Images or something you've seen in the news. You'll find that it's not easy. Copywriting is an art like any other.

mcculley 10y ago
Is there a good book on copywriting that you could recommend?
- kristianc 10y ago
  I love 'Comedy Writing for Late Night TV' by Joe Toplyn which is a 'behind the curtain' look at writing for late night TV and what makes certain lines 'work' and what doesn't. It's writing to be funny, but the principles you write to be funny are actually fairly similar to those you just use for good copywriting generally. I liked his 'Surprise Theory of Comedy', used by the line above in fact. https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-Short-Form/dp/0615953891 https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-S... A lot of great writers end up writing for comedy shows - if you end up in a writing team you get both the promise of a regular paycheck and a constant creative challenge creating lines around new news stories. The 'magic' of copywriting is really knowing maybe twenty really useful mental tools inside out, and executing on them the best way possible. What you tend to find with copywriting is that everyone recommends the same seven books - Cialdini, D&AD etc, I guess like with programming where everyone suggests you read Code Complete - but a lot of them are quite long in the tooth, and have an annoying tendency to just hold lines up and say 'here, this is great copywriting', rather than really break down what makes lines work. That said if you're really brand new to it I'd recommend Hey Whipple, Squeeze This as a good starter for 10. Online, ComedyWire is probably one of the best examples I've seen both for seeing great writers at work and practicing yourself. It's kind of like Hacker News for Comedy - people submit lines in response to news stories and the best ones get upvoted.