If there’s one thing I’ve discovered this past year, it’s that writers spend at least as much time avoiding their art as they spend practicing it. I don’t know why that’s more true of writers than of actors or painters or musicians, but there it is.

If you’re as guilty as the rest of us, Jeffrey Yamaguchi of 52 Projects has some simple remedies. His tips include joining a writing group, entering contests, and carrying a journal around with you at all times (I’ve got this part down; I guess the next logical step would be writing in it).

It really boils down to “just do it”, but doesn’t everything?

(Thanks, Lifehacker! More good tips in the comments of both articles.)

At last someone care’s. Seth Godin note’s that the humble apostrophe is more significant than it’s size indicate’s. Its an easy way for you’re reader’s to know that your too uneducated or too careless to get you’re grammar (or is it syntax?) correct.

This morning Bryan pointed out Copyblogger for my reading pleasure.

The site looks fantastic, and the copy is readable and relevant. With apologies to Randy Jackson, it’s a little pitchy (salespitchy in this case), with comic-book-ad post titles like How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write. I do read Angela Booth from time to time, though, and she’s at least as guilty of this.

I have yet to dig into Copyblogger’s back catalog, but I’m looking forward to it.

I’d like to try making a living at copywriting myself, but I have grander and smaller ambitions for this blog; SRC is about the intersection of me and writing — with no qualifiers attached. Or maybe it’s the intersection of me and you and writing. Whatever.

Regardless, the Copyblogger feed is worth subscribing to if you’re at all interested in scoring more readers — and who isn’t?

In the 8+ years I’ve been in the web consulting biz, there’s one request I’ve heard over and over: “We just want to be able to edit everything on the site ourselves.”

Do you, now?

The Web isn’t Microsoft Word or even PowerPoint (and I’m sure you’ve seen your share of mangled PowerPoint presentations). If we turned you loose on your own site with next to no knowledge of HTML, what would your site look like in a week? You hired someone to design it and lay it out, right? Why would you want to go back and undo all that hard work?

Yes, there’s a need for the client to have some control over the content of the site. But that control is not easy to build. A custom site requires a custom CMS. For every sexy design feature, you lose content flexibility.

I racked my brain for a way to explain this to the latest client, and finally came up with the following idea. It’s so obvious that I’m probably the last person in this line of work to figure it out.

A typical business site is a billboard. Or an ad. Or a brochure. (We don’t call them “brochureware” for nothing.) You don’t see businesses changing their billboards or radio ads every couple of weeks. Those things cost money and take time to create. How do those businesses deliver up-to-date content to current and prospective customers? They use a newsletter.

What’s the new media equivalent of a newsletter? You’re looking at it.

Newsletters have a set format and delivery schedule, and there’s a per-unit cost. A blog delivers content to as many readers as you want, as often as you want, for free (not counting hosting costs). Most blogging software allows you to create whole pages as well, so you’re not stuck with the post-a-few-lines-about-your-cat format.

Why aren’t more companies buying into this? Maybe because you, Mr. Web Professional, haven’t clued them in to the business benefits of blogging. They (and perhaps you, too) see it as a fad that has nothing to do with the business world. Sure, some corporations are tinkering with blogs, but that’s just a cheap marketing trick, right? Well, it could save you some serious headaches as a consultant.

Try this. Tell your client that you’ll scope and build a fancy custom CMS for their fancy custom site. Then, almost as an afterthought, show them the Typo or WordPress blog that it took you thirty minutes to set up. Tell them they can use that as an interim content-management solution until you get the “real” CMS done. They’ll thank you for giving them a whole new marketing channel, and send you more interesting and useful work.

And they’ll forget all about the fancy custom CMS — the one that never gets finished and no one is satisfied with anyway.

I mentioned a post or two back that I was trying to kick off a freelance copywriting venture. In my line of work, if you don’t have a web site, you don’t have a business. With that in mind, allow myself to introduce myself The Copyhacker.

I’m hunting for web sites with ghastly copy. There’s no shortage of them around here. When I find one, someone at that place of business is getting an email, and said site is going up on the Hit List.

Want to help? Let me know of any sites you come across that could use a good Copyhacking. Together we can rid this town of bad writing.

I even have a badge for you to wear with pride. Just link it to copyhacker.com and send some biz my way.

[edit] A big overdue thanks to Bryan for hours of exceptional work on logo, layout and spoon-feeding me CSS.

…thanks to Seth Godin (I told you I want this guy’s job, right?):

If you talked to people the way [businesses] talked to [consumers], they’d punch you in the face. (Hugh MacLeod)

I know what I want to be. I want to be a writer.

I don’t know what I want to do.

Goals notwithstanding, I just can’t see my writing career putting food on the table until I’ve cranked out that first bestseller. I’d love to be a star blogger like Godin, Kawasaki or Gruber, have netizens hanging on my every word, and get book deals dropped in my lap every day. I don’t know how to get there from here, though. I can crank out web copy. I haven’t done much of it, but I know I can. Could I do it several hours a day, every day?

Do I want to?

I’ve had a great time playing with Rails for the last couple of months, and doing a little freelance web consulting. I can’t see that bringing home the bacon, either. Not for long. This pond is too small, and there are a lot of fish in it already. I’m probably the only fish in the pond that knows Rails — but I’m not sure how that translates into a competitive edge when most people think this stuff can’t be that hard (after all, everyone’s nephew knows HTML) and are reluctant to spend much.

I wanted to do a little copywriting, a little development, and a little creative writing, and have the first two subsidize the third. I suppose that could still happen. I haven’t gotten my planned copywriting venture off the ground yet. There may be a little water down that hole.

I have no immediate prospects for my next paycheck, and that’s giving me the willies. I’m sure every newbie freelancer goes through that. The question, though, is what do I do about it?

Eventually I’d like to spend my days either 1) writing fiction or 2) surfing the Interweb and writing about the cool stuff I find. How does one get to that point? I hoped that breaking out of the cubicle prison would give me the time to make money with one hand and develop my creative second career with the other. Was that naive? If I returned to full-time employment, would it advance my goals faster? Or have I just not worked hard enough yet at my own business?

Do any freelancers out there — web, writer, or otherwise — have thoughts (besides ‘cut the navelgazing already’)?

I expect responses to fall into two categories: right brain (“Go for your dreams! (= You can do anything! (=”) and left (“Suck it up. Get a job. Everyone else has to.”). Let’s dig a little deeper than that, huh?

Thoughts crowded past, a neverending flow of associations, imagery, definitions half-baked. With no time to select the best or most fitting, and nary an original in the bunch.