The Copywriter's Casebook 14:
A Slip of the Finger

It's painful to admit, but for all the ways copywriting has made me a better writer—more disciplined, a better editor—it has also taken a toll. The hours I spend servicing mammon with this machine leave a taint that distracts me when I'm trying to do it for love. In more practical terms, it's also infected my writing with copy clichés and stock sentence structures: "custom tailored," "empower," "not only X, but Y as well." Worst is when I don't catch it myself, but have it pointed out to me.

Not that it's a one-way street. I put on a serious face when I'm writing copy (usually a grimace of one kind or another), but I don't always succeed in keeping personal thoughts from drifting into a white paper or press release. This can be particularly embarrassing given my poor habit of not reading over my drafts before turning them in (I'm just so God-awful sick of it by then). It's like when you're talking to somebody and your eye falls on a word and it just pops out of your mouth in place of what you were going to say, like "I have to go out later and pick up some sluts." Except in this case, it's something I've written down and charged somebody a lot of money for.

Take this time last week, for example. I was doing a press release for an enterprise security developer. I'd got through the bulk of it and just had to put in a few quotes before sending it in—the CEO, the customer and an analyst. The first two were smooth sailing, "Smart companies realize" and "We're thrilled" all the way. But later that day, I got an angry call about the third quote. Somehow, I'd written "Today's extended enterprise places new demands on network security. Companies like [my client] have to get that dime bag from Jack soon—he's been holding it so long, he's already probably smoked half of it himself." See—where the heck did that come from?"

Or the brochure I did last spring. There was this one panel where I was going to list high level benefits—this was for an affinity marketing infrastructure solution. I guess the client wasn't paying very close attention, because they didn't even catch the mistake. I discovered it myself when they sent me a few samples of the printed piece, which by then was already in the mail to their entire prospect list. Here—read it yourself; I'm too embarrassed.

A New Model for Financial Empowerment
* Diaper Genie refills
* saline solution
* AA batteries
* 60 watts
* Prep H
* bunion pads
* Robitussin
* R-W?

No one seems to have noticed yet, fingers crossed ...

It can happen any time, in anything I'm writing. It's an unsettling feeling, kind of like being epileptic, I suppose, knowing that at any moment you might go into a fit of which you have no consciousness or control. Yep, any time at all ... just at the most inappropriate, coincidental, or otherwise comical moment. It's as if it mattered what I write, anyway, when I'm staring out the window at the world's likeliest target for a nuclear attack. The stupid bastards ... is this what it comes down to in the end? I'll see it before it hits. I'll have a split-second to think about it. According to that Oliver Sacks article in that New Yorker article, I'll experience that split-second as lasting a lifetime, and I'll spend all of it thinking about what we've lost and what we'll never have. And about ...

It's funny when it happens, but I know I have to take it seriously, too. My clients expect a certain quality of work; they'd be horrified to think I was just sleepwalking through their copy, thinking about a million and one silly things that have nothing to do with enterprise software. They pay my bills. They deserve attention and respect.