I'm going to let you into a secret. Not a massive one, like I know that Pop Idol was fixed back in 2002 and Gareth Gates should have beaten Will Young into second place. No, I'm talking about something really, really insignificant.
My minimum word count for these Creativepool blogs is 500 words.
Wow. Told you it was insignificant.
But actually, one of my biggest problems isn't reaching 500 words; on the contrary, it's stopping myself from droning on for too long. Because if there's one thing I can do when I'm writing, it's waffle.
Granted, this can be a skill worth having. Countless novelists have made millions out of waffling. I'm not knocking Lord Of The Rings, but JRR Tolkein could probably have lopped a few pages off those battle scenes, I'm sure many of you will agree. Oh, it's fine in glorious 3D Technicolor, don't get me wrong. But reading about every thrust of a sword just isn't something I need to do.
Mind you, I ought to get myself tested for ADD. Last year, it literally took me longer to finish a 300-page novel than the author took to write it. Weirdly, when I'm working, I can read for hours without becoming massively distracted. But when it comes to reading for entertainment, forget it. But when I'm the author, having to stop to eat is more or less my only barrier.
So why am I telling you all this? Well, I read an article recently in the Huffington Post called “11 mistakes you make at work. Every. Single. Day.” Whilst I was guilty of some of these, as we all are, number 3 leapt out at me:
Your emails are too long.
According to the article, “super-successful people generally avoid sending long emails, and so should you. Think of how many emails you receive in a day. Now think of how many TL;DR (too long; don't read) emails you’ve skipped over. Why expect more of others than you do of yourself? Our advice: Limit your emails to five sentences or fewer. Just make sure to keep it cheerful, so that you don’t come across as rude.”
Well, broadly, I guess that's good advice. Business people are busy; the clue's in their title. And certainly in copywriting and advertising terms, it is so often true that less is more. So there's definitely something to be said for keeping it short.
Naturally, there are situations where this just isn't possible. But here's one good tip from me personally, which I've found invaluable as a freelancer: if a client sends you a massively wordy email or a long, convoluted brief, repeat it back to them in as few bullet points as possible. That way, both of you will know whether you've “got it” or not, and it'll save a lot of wading back through endless paragraphs if you need to clear something up.
Oh, and in case you're interested, this blog post is precisely 500 words long.
Ashley is a copywriter, editor and blogger
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