I remember sitting down one day to write up a product description for a soap bar. Well, it wasn't just any write-up and it wasn't just any old soap bar. It was the very first write-up and it was the very first soap bar.
I've never had a problem with writing. It comes with ease for me. I'm pretty comfortable with myself, and I learned very early on only to write about what I know. So, there I was with my brand spanking new website, having spent months fine tuning it for both the look and customer experience that I wanted. It would reflect me. It would reflect my products. It would reflect my Manor Hall Soap Company.
"Product photos are up. I need the write-ups now."
"Okay... no problem. I'll have them done tomorrow."
The conversation had been a long time coming. Jason had started creating the website back in September 2005, and here we were, late November of that very same year... with a scheduled December 1st launch. So, I didn't hang around. I sat at the computer, opened up "Notepad" and proudly typed into it: "Honey Me Smooth". Enter key pressed twice, I made to touch the keys to write about my beautiful bar of hand made soap.
Nothing.
Five minutes later... come on, then.
Fifteen minutes later... this is crazy, what is wrong with you, girl?
Up on my feet, I went for a walk around my empty studio. It wasn't a long walk, but enough for me to begin talking out loud about my soap bar. I've never had a problem addressing any group of people, and within seconds the presence of my soap bar was filling the room. Great! And I returned to the keyboard, all set to write.
Nothing.
Gone.
Absolutely Blank.
Incredible! In the short walk from my studio to desk it had all vanished. I left the computer once more, walking around the room talking my head off with a sales pitch like you wouldn't believe. Yet when I sat facing the computer screen once again, I was helpless to stop the words making a break for it through the escape hatch.
Writer's block. It was new to me, and I had to sit down and work out what was happening and why. What exactly was going wrong?
Focus. That great string to the bow of the CEO. The ability to step back and take a proper objective look at things. With focus I noted three things about my writer's block... and also a common theme:
1) While walking around my studio I was relaxed. I was comfortable addressing the empty room talking about my product. I was myself when talking about something I knew well. On sitting down at the computer to write I was trying to be grammatically correct. I wasn't being myself. I'd lost my voice. I was trying to be something that I wasn't.
2) I'd seen product pages on the websites of others... many of them my peers. I thought that's how products should be written up, so I tried. I wasn't being myself. I'd lost my voice. I was trying to be something that I wasn't.
3) I knew my product. I knew why I'd chosen the specific ingredients. I wanted to get the benefits of those ingredients across to the customer. I wanted to sound all-knowing. But I wasn't a recognized herbalist, or chemist, or aromatherapist. I wasn't being myself. I'd lost my voice. I was trying to be something that I wasn't.
In all three instances, I was sitting in the computer chair being something that I wasn't. I wasn't a copy-writer. I wasn't any of my peers. I wasn't an herbalist, a chemist or an aromatherapist.
Once I sat and gave myself permission to just be who I am, the writer's block vanished with as much speed as it had earlier taken me prisoner. I wrote. I wrote freely. I wrote what I wanted to write. I just talked about my soap bar like I was in an auditorium. This was my soap bar. My recipe. My pride and joy. I knew all about it. I knew when I'd made it, and I knew why I'd made it. There was nothing about this bar that I didn't know.
The moment I sat being myself, I was writing copy. It was my copy. It was about my soap bar, and no one knew more about it than me.
To write a good product description, all you need... is to know your product, and then just let loose on the keyboard being who you are. Talk out loud to an empty room with your pride and joy in hand... then sit it close by you, talking again at the computer while it all flows through your fingers. You can spellcheck, edit and delete words once they've all been set free. You can re-work sentences, jiggle it about some, and tidy it all up later. What's important as you sit to write, is being free to talk about your product. Don't tie yourself up in a mental block trying to be something you're not.
Do you find it hard to be who you are? Do you blank when you sit down to write?
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