On Writing, Business, and Charlotte A. Cavatica

My name is not, "Charlotte A. Cavatica", but, like Charlotte of E.B. White's book, "Charlotte's Web", I weave words in the hopes of their having some impact on the world too.

Charlotte was, after all, a very clever copywriter. She managed to sell a whole town (and more) on the idea that Wilbur was a very special pig. She saved Wilbur's life with only her words.

Charlotte didn't describe herself as a copywriter, though. Charlotte talked about being a writer and being a friend who is, by nature, a writer. Writing, for Charlotte A. Cavatica, wasn't about what someone does for a living. It was about what someone is. Still, although Charlotte saw herself as a writer by nature, when the need arose she used what she knew about the written word and about human nature to get the job done.

Some copywriters (and I suppose some particularly capable spiders) have business and advertising in their blood. At some point in their life they decided that they wanted to work in advertising, and the pursued that goal. They thrive on marketing, advertising, and business in general. They are down-to-the-core business people who excel at what they do. Over time they build a knock-your-socks-off resume that clearly confirms that they are, indeed, copywriters in the most conventional sense of the word.

Then there's Charlotte - and me. I can't speak for Charlotte's work history before she spun her high-profile home in the barn, but I started out in a high-tech corporation where I eventually found myself working at the corporate level, being given projects that would lay the foundation for future copy-writing. In the work world we can tend to fall into doing certain types of work because we've already done something similar previously. One project leads to another, and before we know it we're doing something for a living we never really planned to do. We find ourselves taking courses and reading up on work-related material, and before we know it we, too, have built up our resumes. Writers like Charlotte and me, however, don't have advertising and marketing in our blood   (Do spiders have blood all?)

We have writing in our blood (again, if, in fact, spiders - particularly fictional ones - have blood). Therein lies my challenge and the question about whether or not I can ever be a top-notch copywriter, when I am made of writing and not business and advertising.

Back when I found myself working in the marketing/high-tech/corporate environment the definition of the word, "writing", changed for me. While I had grown up just kind of knowing that I was, by nature, a writer the way I was, by nature, a brown-haired individual; once I was writing at work I became very aware of the difference between being a writer and writing for a living. Sometimes there is, of course, overlap. Often there isn't. Throughout my work life I've generally had the benefit of having someone else do the real marketing while I just wrote the material. The part of me that is a writer rather than a worker also wrote several different types of verse, letters to dead people (I had my reasons ), and any number of other types of material. We, Charlotte-types, write for entertainment too - and when we're all done with all the writing we do we use our leisure time to write.

Like Charlotte, I have children (although not nearly the number of them Charlotte had). When the children came along I took my resume and references and used them to find freelance work. I hate to share the fact that I'm from the stone-age, but when my children were coming along there was no Internet. The work is managed to get was, for the most part, simple work. I wrote, gave the material to someone else, and they did whatever they did with it. It was about earning a little money, but it was also about keeping my hand in writing (and sometimes other projects). I wasn't picky because 20 years ago finding work on your own wasn't as easy as it is today.

When a couple of newspapers hired me I took that work too. At the time all I wanted to do was keep building a portfolio until my youngest child went to school. The gap between what I was and what I did to build that portfolio widened. To try to try to bridge that gap I embarked on what would be a fifteen-year research project, with the original idea of creating a newsletter and later, possibly, a book on education issues. As I closed the gap, though, my need to become more expert in advertising and marketing became more apparent. At this point, I didn't have a big corporation to cover the tuition for the courses I really could have used, and a couple of my baby spiders had college tuition to be paid. It wasn't that I knew nothing about advertising/marketing, but the world had changed and added a whole new dimension to marketing. After years of trying to build on both the writer-in-my-blood and the writer-as-business-person (again, two very different people), I decided to take my show off the road and put it more on the Internet. As we all know, however, the Worldwide Web is a world in itself. Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. (Oops - I'm mixing my movie metaphors.)

While many of the projects I've taken still are the type of thing where I do the writing, send it to someone, and they do whatever it is they do with it, the individual who lacks sufficient knowledge about the ins-and-outs of online marketing is at a serious disadvantage. A more serious disadvantage is that the Charlotte-type-of-person's heart isn't set "a-pounding" by the idea of becoming an expert in online marketing and business development. (Do spiders have hearts?) Just as I had managed to reconcile the different parts of the writer I am, and just as I had become savvy enough to realize that writing is my OS and several programs running at the same time, Internet marketing exploded to become a discipline in itself. What I'm now wondering is this: In spite of having been told by employers/clients that my work was effective and solid, will my work growth remain stunted unless/until I become an Internet marketing wizard? (While that man behind the curtain proved there was no real wizard in the land of Oz, in the world of Internet marketing wizards can seem to be the rule, rather than the exception.)

I'm confident that I know my work. I've had whatever training in advertising/marketing I've had. Like Charlotte, I'm even pretty good at understanding human nature. Maybe I haven't saved a friend's life with my writing; but, like Charlotte, with the occasional help of a friend like Templeton (who brought scraps to assist with the completion of Charlotte's magnificent accomplishments), I've spun a few effective words of my own. What I don't know is whether scraps of Internet marketing knowledge are enough to have my words seen by enough people when/if a project involves more than just writing and letting someone do the marketing.

I have my little business going (limping along a good part of the time). I'm continuing to build my resume, references, and portfolio. What I don't know is whether - as long as I'm placing emphasis on online work as opposed to bricks-and-mortar work - I can turn my little business into a booming, thriving, business without being an Internet marketing wizard.

The other thing I don't yet know is whether you can ever really turn a Charlotte-kind-of-person into an Internet marketing wizard. It isn't as if I'm completely ignorant about Internet marketing, and I'm not ignorant about marketing in general. I've managed, until now, to find projects that primarily involve only writing with small amounts of "Internet Light" knowledge. Its pretty clear to just about everyone in the world, though, that "you-write-it/I'll-do-the-rest" projects are dwindling.

For now, I will continue to take the scraps of Internet marketing knowledge I have, combine them with the copy-writing skill I have, and try to figure out whether a Charlotte-type-of-person can ever really devote the time and energy needed to become a wizard of Internet marketing.

When I was a child I never said, "I want to be a copywriter when I grow up." I just grew up, spun my web, and had some babies to feed. Any projects I've had I've fallen into, and then because I fell into those I fell into more. Now it appears I'm falling deeper and deeper into the world of Internet marketing. Its all good. Its a living. I just don't know if I am really able to stray far enough away from my own web to be super-capable on the Worldwide web.