howiecobb

I’m a copywriter. I write short pieces of text to entice people to buy products;  as soon as they’ve read the headline if possible. It’s not literature, but it IS using words in their most concise and strongest form, in order to persuade or entice.

I love playing with words, reading how others use words; sounding out particular words like  ‘hooly’, ‘sashay’ and ‘discombobulated’. My favourite place name is ‘Puerto Escondido’. It sounds like a poem.

There comes a time when any writer wants to be able to say these few words.. “I wrote a book” And I did just that. It wasn’t a best seller, but it did the job.

The classic writer Mark Twain said: “Don’t get it right, get it writ”, and that’s how I decided to tackle it.

I took off in the ’80s and travelled the world alone, – looking for the ‘me’ in me; I had to, I had nothing left.  I sat down everyday in cafes, bars, noodle shops, cheap hostels or beaches, and tried to take pictures with my eyes instead of a camera, describing what I was seeing using my mind instead of paint and brushes.

I tried to use words to explain what I was seeing and hearing, reading other writers incessantly to see how they managed this, and some became my travelling companions – Jack Kerouac, V.S.Naipaul, Paul Theroux, George Orwell – but not the self-inflated dullard that is Hemingway. I’d got it writ.

But back home in green and pleasant England, the words had to be shaped and trimmed, coaxed and polished into a book that may be of interest to someone, so I turned to another of my guiding lights.

The legendary copywriter David Ogilvy can be attributed dozens of clever, humurous and useful anecdotes about advertising copywriting. he was a genius and the original ‘Madman’ of the Madison Avenue advertising world.

His rule, which became my holy mantra, and which I attempt to apply to all my writing to this day, is this…

‘Never overwrite or exaggerate, keep it simple, cut it down, cut it down again’ Never write…”The man was very tall”  “‘The man was tall”  It say’s it all.

And if there’s one modern saying that annoys me to the point of despair it is this..  “I’ll give you 110%”.  There is no such thing.  If somone came to me for a job and offered me 100% effort, I would be impressed and engaged. If they offered me more I would offer them the door.

I have rewritten the travel book ‘Two Minute Noodle’ that I first published in 1995, as I want to add a prefix and a suffix to it, make it the complete meal deal. There is a link to it on the blogroll or take a look here… www.twominutenoodle.com

It is, after all, my life. 100%