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The Writer's
Story ~ Lisa Taylor Huff
How a deck
of cards led me to become a professional writer
 I've always been someone who
has "a way with words" -- and it started early in life. My mother tells me I
said my first real word at the age of only 9 months, when I saw a squirrel
outside, pointed to it, and said "kwirl". It was the first inkling of what
would prove to be my life-long love affair with the art and craft of
language!
Growing up, I sometimes dabbled in writing short stories or
poetry. In school, I excelled at subjects requiring creativity and
communications: english composition and literature, art, and performing arts
such as music and theatre (math and science, however, were the bane of my very
existence!) In any scholastic project that required me to write, the work came
effortlessly, a circumstance that allowed me to slack off quite a bit whenever
I had a term paper to turn in -- I could crank out an "A" paper with very
little time or energy. (Fortunately I now put a lot more thought and
preparation into my writing!)
A "closet" writer in the business and technical
world
In the business world and throughout my corporate and
technical career, although my job title never had the word "writer" in it,
writing seemed to frequently appear as a job requirement -- or if not a
requirement, then writing opportunities seemed to gravitate to me without me
seeking them out. I have written anything and everything in my corporate
career, from inter-office memos, to business systems specifications, to
training and development manuals, to computer systems documentation and user
manuals, to system help-text. I've written content for the web site of
my former corporate employer, and for a number of my more recent web clients
and for professional associations of which I've been a member. I seem to be one
of those rare individuals who can bridge the gap between business and common
language, and "techno-speak" -- translating business requirements into language
the technies need, and translating technical terms back into language a
business customer can easily grasp. If it's considered business or technical
writing, just name it, and chances are I've written something that
qualifies!
I've developed winning sales proposals, where the
proposals ranged in size and scope from a simple 3-5 page letter of agreement,
to extensive team efforts involving hundreds of pages. I've been a member of
committees charged with developing content for a huge corporate
intranet, and drafting standards documentation for corporate web
design and company HR/Benefits projects. My reputation for being able to
clearly and articulately communicate, both verbally and in writing, seemed to
be apparent to others, although I often brushed it aside (after all, I was in a
technical career path, I didn't consider myself a "writer"!) Once, my own
manager and mentor said to me: "If I knew what you know about the web, and if I
had your writing talent, I'd quit this place and write a book!" Little did he
realize he was planting a seed...
And, for my own business, I've
written 100% of my own web site copy, marketing literature, sales proposals,
and articles and newsletters that have reached thousands of people world wide.
I get raves on my web sites, especially from new clients who have just
discovered me for the first time -- and what they typically tell me is they
decided to hire me based on the strength of the message I delivered via the web
site, or that they felt I really would "get" them and be able to help them. For
my creative writing, I often receive reprint requests for my articles and some
have been translated into German, Spanish, French, and even
Portugese!
A career
transition creates more opportunities, inadvertently, to hone my skills as a
writer
I worked in the corporate business and information
technology world for nearly 20 years, and in the late 1990's I decided a career
change was in order. I discovered the profession of "coaching", and became a
fully trained and credentialed professional coach, specializing in career/life
coaching. Again, this proved to be a natural extension of my passion for
language, because coaching requires the use of very specific languaging choices
when working with a client. I became more and more aware of how important it is
to select words that would help a client achieve a breakthrough, see things in
a new light, and allow the client to feel empowered -- and part of my job as a
coach was to teach these same clients how to "re-language" the way they talked
to or about themselves (it's amazing how much negative language we use about
ourselves!)
And, as a coach, I chose writing as a way to expand and grow
my business. In 1999 I started my newsletter,
which has since gone through a number of changes and titles, but now goes by
"Living
Boldly®", my registered trademark for my coaching practice. The
newsletter started out with a mailing list of 50 of my close friends and
relatives... and now has grown to over 1,000 subscribers world wide! I also
began to write articles in the form of "Top 10 Lists" via a web site called
"TopTen.org". These articles begain to attract attention (and reprint requests)
leading to my first radio appearance and my first published article, in the
inaugural issue of Balance Magazine (formerly called Living in
Balance). I also briefly served as a columnist for a (sadly, short-lived)
e-magazine called LifeSmart Solutions Magazine.
Web design leads to invitations to write
web copy -- and a deck of cards leads to a new professional path as a
writer!
Although I "officially" left my corporate I.T. career
behind in 1998 when I became a full-time coach, I decided to stay involved in
web design on a
freelance basis, and began building web sites for other coaches and for
professionals, small businesses, and non-profit associations -- a business,
under the name "Get The WOW!™", that has grown over time and
continues to be a solid income stream for me. Along the way, I would usually
end up editing or rewriting some of the copy my clients provided for their web
sites, although at that time I did not offer web copy writing as one of my
official services.
Over time, I began to realize just how much I truly
love writing, and decided I wanted to start actively pursuing a NEW career
direction as a professional freelance writer and copywriter. I began to "take
the hint" about writing professionally, that seed that my former boss had
planted years earlier and which had been growing slowly and quietly for the
past 10 years.
I got further validation of the importance of writing in
my life, when I participated in a workshop held by a friend of mine, in which
she introduced us to a tool called "Calling Cards" (www.inventuregroup.com). Through an
exercise with this special deck of cards (containing words or phrases such as
"getting organized", "crunching the numbers", "strategizing", or "caring for
others"), we selected those cards that really "clicked" with each of us -- the
idea being that you would narrow your choices down to your top five, and
ultimately out of the five you would select ONE as your primary "calling card".
The exercise was designed to give you important clues to help you identify a
new career path by helping you grasp what work activities are the most
personally satisfying for you.
 My calling card said
simply, "Writing things". Enough said.
So now... I've come
full circle. I now combine my past business, technical and writing experiences,
all that I have learned and applied about language as a coach, and my ongoing
love of writing -- and offer it to businesses, professionals and creative
types, who either don't have the time or the skill to get their thoughts and
business ideas down on paper. And, I look forward to the opportunity of
becoming YOUR partner in helping you and your business, whenever you need to
find the "write" edge™!
You can't sell it if you
can't write it. What are you waiting for? Take action today and go from
"wannabee published" to "Author, Author!"
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Why struggle -- and why wait? It's time to get "The Write Edge™"!
Contact me to get started!
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Writing Coach's
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