neXtDRAFT Issue 14. Intuition and the art of choosing
Published: Tue, 01/30/18
Welcome to neXtDRAFT Issue 14. Intuition and the Art of Choosing. I've been reading a fabulous book The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Life which inspired this week's theme and quotes.
Choosing! The human dilemma that knocks at our doors each day; what is the best use of our time? Our bucket lists are so full of dreams, our houses so full of stuff, our calendars so full of plans, our heads so full of promises. Choosing is something we want to get very good at.
And how do we make those choices? From a tiny voice in our head? Flipping a coin? Asking the neighbours? Watching Oprah? Reading? Time in silent meditation or prayer? Do we have the maturity to make decisions based on our values and not by
how we feel in the moment?
When you consider that, at the end of our life, all we really are is the sum of our choices, maybe the choice between watching TV or playing guitar is more important than it seems. I read somewhere that no trumpets sound when the important decisions of your life are being made.
I'm turning 50
in early March, and I guess milestone birthdays trigger all sorts of life reviews and reflection on personal choices. It's easy to sit back and mull over the larger picture of your life, but lately I'm getting more focused in my gaze. Concentrating on the daily small choices that build my life. My writing life and my family life.
The choice to get up and write morning pages instead of sleeping in a bit. Reading
'The Copywriter's Handbook' instead of browsing Instagram. Flicking the cellphone into 'aeroplane' mode every Sunday and concentrating on Jerry and the beautiful day outside instead of Facebook. Completing Jame's Patterson's Masterclass instead of watching Netflix.
When you live in the constant state of awareness that each of these very small choices creates the reality of your whole life, it becomes
easier to turn notifications permanently to 'off' in the FB and Twitter apps.
So this week I've been concentrating even more than usual on my daily choices and decisions, and how much I'm engaging my intuition in making them. I thought I'd share a few of my discoveries with you: from a quoted passage on inspiration; or following a 9 year old up into an abandoned construction site; to an old
sailor who procrastinated himself through an entire shipwreck!
Have fun this week thinking about your own choices and the life they've created. Your life.
Till next week.
Mel xx
Intuition
[extract The Everyday Work of Art by Eric Booth]
"Artists base their choices on many different kinds of information, commonly including past experience, advice, and logical conclusions. But I have a hunch, a gut feeling, an educated guess - I just know, OK? - that their most important basis for making a choice is the hardest one to discuss: intuition.
Intuition is the process through which you 'just know' something, without logical basis. It is sometimes deemed to be a mysterious talent or gift: the nurse who always seems to know what to do next in the tough-call situations; the mechanic who can fix the sputtering engine that baffles everyone else. But the nurse and the mechanic have been well-trained in their crafts; they have attended to their
previous inquiries and followed the impact of choices they have made and seen in the past. Intuition is not a supernatural visitation, it is a skill; one learned best in the work of art within a medium you love, be it medication or motors."
Small Choices
Earlier this week Jerry and I were in the next town buying
groceries and a pizza treat for our dinner. We rode the 25 minutes in the tricycle to the centre of Balasan, but as Estancia tricycles are not allowed on the highway down past the shopping mall, we are forced to (either) change to a Balasan bicycle rickshaw or walk the remaining 500 metres.
Walking past a double story, under construction concrete structure I noticed a family of about 7 stuffed into a motor-bike trailer ... waiting to go home. I really wanted to take their picture but hesitated, when suddenly Jerry shouted ... 'Tita Mel, let's go up".
He indicated a small set of narrow concrete stairs leading to the deserted construction site. Normally I would have said no, but something (call it intuition if you will) urged me up. I hesitated as he begged again, before suddenly changing direction giving him permission to tear up the stairs.
As soon as I reached the top I was struck by radiance of Jerry's luminous orange clothes against the all cement-grey platform. He did a few little ballet turns and posed for a photo. Magical.
Meanwhile below, some kids were following us up the stairs and the family in the motorcycle were grinning and waving at our little adventure. Happy for the photograph I'd so wanted to take earlier.
Jerry is luminous in orange against the grey concrete.
Happy 10th Birthday Jerry
Today is Jerry's 10th Birthday and he left for school this morning with a big plate of party food for his beloved teacher Ma'am Loro. Going to bed last night, he had resigned himself to the
fact there would be no birthday party this year and had no clue of the little breakfast birthday treat party I planned for him.
So he woke up completely surprised (and stoked) this morning when his best friend was already here at 5.45am. Then at 6.15am when the other kids normally come to collect their school lunches, what was waiting instead was spaghetti (that Filipino style folks), cupcakes,
stir-fried chicken and egg noodles, hot steaming red rice, and garlic prawns (shrimp). Oh and a beautiful birthday cake with 2 little xx's at the bottom under his name. It was a lovely surprise.
Buying Jerry's cake yesterday afternoon, everyone in the store was hovering around to see what message the white woman was having written on her cake. They were very curious about
those 2 xx's, until I told them all they were kisses. A young man waiting at the back of the store with his girlfriend said he'd like at least 10 of those xx's on his cake please.
So all of this created a lovely birthday experience. The children stuffed themselves on party food and took the leftovers in their lunchboxes instead of the usual fish and vegetables, and Jerry trotted off to
school with his brother ( the plate of food for Ma'am lovingly wrapped inside a plastic shopping bag).
Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible. You know who you are.
Plenty of mischief in those eyes. Oh the impending teenage years!
It was wonderful to sit among the kids, eat breakfast and chat with them again. I've been so busy working the past months
sometimes all I manage is a good morning as they collect their school lunch.
THE GIFT OF CHOICE
This is Rona May. You've probably seen her on the blog or here in the newsletter from time to time. Doesn't she look beautiful in bright
yellow? Last Wednesday afternoon Jerry and I happened across Rona May on one of our afternoon walks. She eagerly trotted along with us for the rest of the way. Passing a little roadside stand selling used clothes I told her to choose something, and for $2.50 I bought her this little top. She didn't wear her school uniform on Thursday to class, she wore the top. Beaming (not really from the gift) from the ability to choose her own clothes. The gift was not money, not clothes. The gift
was the choice.
Plastic Flowers ... Ma'am Said
Last Thursday, as Jerry was putting on his school shoes (ready to return to school after lunch break) he decided to tell me about the class project. He did
it by sitting at the bottom of the stairs and calling my name, with the emphasis on dragging the syllable ‘ellll’ out, along and up into house like a clanging church bell.
Read more about how Jerry thinks
that adding “Ma’am said” to any sentence makes it 100% correct, inarguable and completely ok.
#ontimenexttimekid #deadlines
Silhouette in Orange
recurrent
concrete – support
the tiny framework
Waiting To Go Home
among the steady
trill of motors, beats, our time we are all,
just waiting to go home
and he wanted a hat,
and he wanted some breeks;
And he wanted some nets, or a line and some hooks
For the turtles and things which you read of in books.
And, thinking of this, he remembered a thing
Which he wanted (for water) and that was a spring;
And he thought that to talk to he'd look for, and keep
(If he found it) a goat, or some chickens and sheep.
Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut
With a door (to come in by) which opened and
shut
(With a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about),
And a very strong lock to keep savages out.
He
began on the fish-hooks, and when he'd begun
He decided he couldn't because of the sun.
So he knew what he ought to begin with, and that
Was to find, or to make, a large sun-stopping hat.
He was making the hat with some leaves from a tree,
When he thought "I'm as hot as a body can be,
And I've nothing to take for my terrible thirst;
So I'll look for a spring, and I'll look for it first."
Then he thought as
he started, "Oh, dear and oh, dear!
I'll be lonely to-morrow with nobody here!"
So he made in his note-book a couple of notes:
"I must first find
some chickens"
and "No, I mean goats."
He had just seen a goat (which he knew by the shape)
When he thought, "But I must have a boat for escape.
But a boat means a sail, which means needle and thread;
So I'd better sit down and make needles
instead."
He began on a needle, but thought as he worked,
That, if this was an island where savages lurked,
Sitting safe in his hut he'd have nothing to fear,
Whereas now they might suddenly breathe in his ear!
So he thought of his hut ... and he thought of his boat,
And his hat and his breeks, and his chickens and goat,
and the hooks (for his food) and the spring (for his
thirst)
But he never could think
which he ought to do first.
And so in the end he did nothing at all,
But basked in the shingle wrapped up in a shawl.
And I do think it was dreadful the way he behaved
-
I remember thinking it would be cool to get 'Now we are Six' by A. A. Milne when you are six, so I wrote a little fib inside the front cover. And then my conscience got the better of me
and I went back and changed it. 'The Old Sailor' was always my favourite poem.
This space is for my clients and anyone wanting to learn more about maximising their online presence. Every week I offer my best advice for selling online, improving website metrics, and how to blog strategically. I also
showcase one of my clients each week as a way of saying thank you for the business. Of course it's a place to advertise my own writing services (because I have to make a living too). Email me for any topics you'd like me to cover.
Questions to ask before hiring a web developer
Web Development, Graphic Design, SEO and Copywriting are all different skill sets.
Before you go hiring someone to build you a website you want to find out who'll be building the site? Who'll be writing the text? Who'll be optimising the site for SEO? Web
developers who really know their stuff either have an in-house team that includes copywriting specialists and SEO experts, or outsource these services to trusted contractors.
Now think about the questions the web developer asked you. Did they ask your overall goals for the website? Did they ask how the website fits into your overall business plan? Did they ask about your target audience and for specific details
about your customers? Did they ask to see your website metrics and analytics?
If they were more focused on what colours you like, and the links of three websites you find appealing, they may end building you something that looks nice but doesn't sell anything, or gain you any new customers.
Ask plenty of questions and make sure your web developer builds you a site
that not only looks great, but effectively sells your products and services.
#websitesthatwork #sellingonline
Quick Q&A
What is a meta-description
When you google something the result appears as a list; the text in that list is called a meta-description. The meta-description is a short piece of text that appears in organic search results and describes what is actually on
a webpage.
If you are serious about SEO and getting your website to rank, you'll write a meta-description for every page on your website, plus every single blog post.
Let's look a little more closely to show you what I
mean.
I've just googled "Australian Copywriter" and found myself about half-way down page 4. Here's what my meta-description looks like ... (can you see how the words 'Australian copywriter' are in bold? That's google doing that.
This little piece of text was crafted in the back end of my own website a few weeks ago. So I'm actually pretty stoked because google knows I exist for the search term I wanted.
Good news.
I checked out some of the Australian copywriters who made it to page 1, and a few of those writers have been in business (and adding content to their websites) for more than 10 years. Yikes. Those guys are going to be hard to crack. I did notice that some of the newbies who are ranking higher than me have used the word 'copywriting' in their text as well as
the word 'copywriter'. So I made a few changes to my meta-description and saved it again. Here's how it looks now.
See how I've changed the 'call-to-action' text (eg, Say hello today) and added "copywriting service" at the end? Even though I've already made the changes and saved on the backend of my website, it will take a couple of weeks before the
updated text appears in a google search. So if you google me right now (Australian Copywriter) you'll probably still get the original meta-description from this morning.
What I've just done now is a bit of SEO. Search Engine Optimisation. As I mentioned last week, it's like the lost city of Atlantis, you take your best guess and start hacking away.
Let's check back in a few weeks and see if I improve at all in the "Australian Copywriter" stakes. I think this will develop into a nice little case study.
Client Profile: Orangutan Alliance
The Orangutan Alliance challenges you to CHOOSE WITH YOUR BUY: the one powerful thing you can actually do each and every day. Only support companies and buy products produced ethically and sustainably.
Working with the Orangutan Alliance last year, I did a lot of research surrounding the production of Palm Oil and the real cost to our environment. It was
terribly upsetting to read of human rights abuses on palm oil plantations, young children pulled out of school to meet harvest quotas, tribal groups losing title to their lands, orangutans and other significant species shot or displaced are just a few examples.
And that doesn't even include the more than 100,000 people who died across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in 2015 when illegal fires (lit to burn down
forests to make way for oil palm plantations) raged out of control, creating a toxic haze of smoke and poisonous gases.
I immersed myself in this stuff for weeks and weeks. I felt like a digital squatter on the UN and World Bank websites and the whole thing left me deeply troubled and convinced these practices extend to more industries than palm oil.
So I encourage all of you to check out Orangutan Alliance and see what they're all about. Like all my clients they're the real deal. Real people who just want to see our planet treated a bit better. They're not asking for
donations or money of any kind, they're a consumer education website advocating for the correct labelling of palm oil on consumer goods.
And whether you believe in the phrase 'climate change' or not, there is no denying that we human beings are polluting this beautiful earth God created at unsustainable rates.
Think about what's in your supermarket trolley, only buy what you need, give companies like Nestlé the flick, and support the work of the ethical organisations like Orangutan Alliance.
#palmoilfree
#orangutans #lifeforall
PS: for legal reasons my comments regarding Nestlé are personal and based on my own research independent of Orangutan Alliance. I encourage everyone to do their own research, and take the time to see if your favourite food manufacturer is responsible for deforestation and human rights
violations.
WritingBiz: choosing payment methods for your online business
Whether you're a professional writer needing to get paid for royalties from Amazon, book sales at a writer's festival, or receive invoice payment from copywriting clients, you'll need a suitable payment method. This post gives some ideas (especially for newer business or online traders) on how get simple payment methods up and running early, and you can start receiving money from the
get-go.
For those of you who don't really know me, when I'm not working on a new edition of neXtDRAFT or hanging out with Jerry, I'm working as a professional copywriter, business blogger and poet. I write for small business, bloggers and online retailers all over the world. I love working with ethical and sustainable businesses that add real value to the community. Tell your friends about my writing
services because every dollar I made gets me one step closer to adopting Jerry as well as helping other disadvantaged kids go to school.
