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Sometimes the most magical films are the ones with no magic in them — at least not “magic” in the storybook sense. The Japanese animated film Whisper of the Heart contains no magic spells, wizards, witches, demons or gods, and with the exception of one fanciful dream sequence it remains rooted in the real world of a few middle-class kids and adults in 1990s Tokyo. And yet there is magic here — the magic of people deciding what they want to be when they grow up and then transcending themselves to make it happen.

Shizuku loves books. While her classmates occasionally hit the school library to do their homework or prepare for their high-school entrance exams, she’s there every day reading story after story. She also enjoys writing poems and song lyrics for her friends, and they seem impressed by her skill. But that’s as far as it goes, until one day she realizes that someone named Amasawa has already checked out all the books she’s currently reading.

Intrigued by this mysterious stranger with similar literary tastes, she decides to find out who he is. Seiji Amasawa turns out to be a classmate she’s never even talked to before, except to trade the occasional insult. The real surprise occurs when she learns that this “typical teenager” builds violins — and he’s serious enough about it to apply to a school in Cremona, Italy, the Mecca of violin making. As she slowly falls for this ambitious boy, she realizes that she’s reached a crossroads in her life. He has a dream — does she? He’s going halfway across the world for 10 years’ hard study to become a violin maker — is she ready to get serious about becoming a writer?

Shizuku makes a decision to push herself by writing her first full-length story in the two months that Seiji is visiting Italy for his initial evaluation as an apprentice. Anyone who has ever pushed themselves into uncharted territory will recognize the image of the girl slumped over her desk 24 hours a day, pen in hand, neglecting her schoolwork, not eating, not (intentionally) sleeping, and scared to death she doesn’t have it in her after all. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, she hates the story’s second half, she’s ready to burst into tears when she hands the manuscript to Seiji’s kindly old grandpa to read — but she’s done it. She’s a writer.

At some point, this movie seems to say, we have to take that first step forward into the danger zone of What Am I without waiting for the bright light of certainty to illuminate our path. I believe that’s true. It’s true for writers, violin makers, entrepreneurs, or anyone else who seeks to transform his or her life.

This movie reminded me of how scary it can be to write that first story or attempt that new thing, whatever it may be. Writing is frightening. Going for what we want is frightening. Living is frightening — if we’re doing it right.

Lights up. The scene is a plush office in a bustling metropolis. A large man in a silk suit buzzes a younger, leaner, more nervous-looking man into his office. They greet each other and exchange a few minutes of small talk about the national industry trends, the latest headlines, the word on the street. The bigger man asks the smaller man to have a seat, then perches on the edge of his desk and speaks in apologetic tones to the smaller man about the company’s current challenges before dropping the reason he’s called the fellow in.

The smaller man yells, “What do you mean, I’m fired?”

Curtain. End of scene — or is it the beginning?

Yes, the opening paragraph sets a tone — it prepares the audience for a looming crisis in the conversation, gives us background information, and so on. A playwright or novelist could, in fact, draw that scene out for several minutes or pages to build suspense, especially if the audience has an idea of what’s coming to the poor dope in the chair.

Or we could do this:

Lights up. “What do you mean, I’m fired?”

Which opening gets our attention faster and propels us into the scene more forcefully?

One of the most useful things my playwriting instructors used to harp about was to “start in the middle.” Atmosphere and exposition have their uses, but the story doesn’t start until something happens.

Marketing writing sometimes suffers from this kind of foot dragging. I think we have it drilled into us when we’re writing those five-paragraph essays in school: “I will now talk about this, and I will support my thesis with these paragraphs, and in summary here’s my conclusion.” It’s linear, it’s clear, and it’s easy to grade. But it’s also predictable, and if you always know what’s coming next in a marketing piece, you might as well stop reading it and get back to work.

It’s fun to tease readers that something big is coming soon if they’ll just be patient and bear with you, but they may not feel like waiting for the drum roll. If your readers or website visitors aren’t sticking around for the exciting part, try dropping them right into the exciting part instead. Save the boring part for — well, nothing, actually. Boring doesn’t belong in marketing, so throw the boring part out. Fill your audience in on the details after you’ve hooked them, because without the hook, I guarantee you the details won’t matter.

Curtain.

SUPEREGO
Right, he’s asleep.

INNER CRITIC
You wrung him out like a rag today.

SUPEREGO
Oh, pish-tush. A 17-hour day is nothing to an entrepreneur who truly cares about meeting his deadlines.

CREATIVE SPARK
I don’t feel well.

INNER CRITIC
I don’t blame you. I saw what you did today.

CREATIVE SPARK
I did great things. Okay, good things. Okay…Anyway, who can get anything done when he’s being chased all over the frontal lobes by a sadist wielding a hammer?

INNER CRITIC
Wimp. It was a foam rubber Whack-a-Mole mallet, and you know it.

CREATIVE SPARK
I don’t care what it is, it’s distracting.

INNER CRITIC
Do you even have a clue about what my job is?

CREATIVE SPARK
Well, what about my job? What about that?

INNER CRITIC
You give me a pain, you really do. Always leaping up out of nowhere with some half-cocked idea. Every time you throw a lightning bolt I have to shoot the stupid thing down. It’s exhausting. The mallet’s better than you deserve.

SUPEREGO
Stop this bickering, both of you. It reflects poorly on the literary art. Vigilance and work ethic count for far more than any petty internal squabbles. In fact….what time is it?

EGO
4 A.M.

SUPEREGO
Time for me to wake him up and make him wonder if he ran the spell-check on the draft he sent tonight.

INNER CRITIC
Hey, while he’s up, lemme at him for a minute.

CREATIVE SPARK
You’ve had enough fun for one day. Sit down.

INNER CRITIC
He had no business feeling good about that thing. No business. I didn’t even mention the clumsiness of the organization. The pacing was poorly judged too.

CREATIVE SPARK
How am I supposed to spring him into action tomorrow after you two have had your way with him all night?

SUPEREGO
I simply feel that it’s a service provider’s duty to check his work again. And again. And again. He appreciates it, deep down. It makes him feel responsible.

CREATIVE SPARK
It makes him feel sleepy.

INNER CRITIC
Feeling the pressure, are we? Maybe he’ll decide to just stay in bed tomorrow.

SUPEREGO
No, I won’t have that. I’m make sure he notices that utility bill as soon as he wakes up.

CREATIVE SPARK
I won’t allow it either. You want thunderbolts? I’ll show you thunderbolts! And just you try shooting them down once he’s on his third cup of coffee. Just you try!

INNER CRITIC
Yeah? Well, you just wait till he’s completely awake and gets a second look at his work from the night before. Game over, pal! Game freakin’ over!

ID
QUIET UP THERE! I’M TRYING TO WORK!

For thousands of writers around the world, another November means another novel.

In case you didn’t know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a global scribe-fest in which writers and non-writers alike clear their desks, warm up their computers, and fry their minds for the entire 30 days of the month. Their mission: Write a short novel of at least 50,000 words. And amazingly enough, last year over 20,000 masochistic souls managed to beat the midnight deadline on the last day and claim their prize — a listing on the Winner’s Page and a certificate verifying that they have, in fact, written a bona-fide novel.

Okay, so there’s no publisher’s contract or new car or big check awaiting the winners. The fact that they climbed the mountain is the true reward. Sometimes it takes a serious challenge like NaNoWriMo to get the wheels turning. (And feel free to jeer at me because I didn’t enter. I sort of had this copywriting thing going on. And I’m lazy. Maybe next year.)

So, how do these folks sit down and bang out a novel in a month? Well, here’s their secret — they sit down and bang out a novel in a month. That’s pretty much it, as far as I can tell. Participants are encouraged not to bring in pre-outlined material or drafts they’ve already started. NaNoWriMo isn’t about crossing every T and dotting every I on your beloved dream project, and you couldn’t manage that in a month’s time anyway. NaNoWriMo is about tapping the keys madly for 30 days, regardless of the results.

As challenging as it may be to chain yourself to a desk for that period of time, your computer’s online playland makes it even harder to stay focused. Some writers use specials tools to narrow their distractions. Software applications such as Dark Room or Writeroom, for instance, turn the entire screen into a blank page — no browser begging for attention, no email waving its little flags at you. For the really hardcore cases there’s Typewriter, which allows for — well, not much. No backspacing, no deleting. All you can do is keeping going forward, mistakes and all.

Why write 50,000 words of probable drivel? By doing so, you drop yourself deep into the creative process and keep yourself there for a month — a powerful experience. You eliminate that inner editor who usually stands over your shoulder and prevents you from trying new or crazy things. Best of all, you prove to yourself that you can meet that deadline and write that book. Maybe later you can rewrite it into a good book, or maybe not. But the book exists now, and you wrote it.

Congratulations to this year’s intrepid word warriors. Now, who’s in for next year?

I see lots of writing “how-to” titles in book stores — guides on how to write better, how to write faster, how to find the time to write, how to gather the courage to write, how to make money writing, and so on. But there’s one subject that I’ve never seen anyone write about, and that’s how to enjoy writing.

Don’t be silly, you say. One naturally assumes that if you’ve set out to write something, then you must enjoy writing. Yes?

Not necessarily. You may be pressed into a writing assignment you have no desire to fool with, but the need exists, the deadline is established, and your colleagues have found some way of magically excusing themselves from the job. Non-writers in particular hate being being saddled with a writing assignment, and that’s completely understandable. But what about those of us who actually choose to take on writing projects? Obviously we live for the thrill of sitting at our desks, tapping the keys for hours one end, day in and day out, with the occasional extra excitement of staring at the wall and wondering what in the world comes next.

Yeah.

Sometimes writing is fun, or at least painless. I sit down, relax for a moment, writing comes out, and before I know it the workday is over and I have a completed draft, ready for submission. I like it when that happens. But there are plenty of assignments where I’m pushing my way through quicksand, one 2-ton foot at a time, wishing I were anywhere else, doing anything else in the world. Sometimes just getting started, just going to the desk and turning the computer on, feels like a long march to the gallows. I just know there can’t be anything good awaiting me at the end of that road. Oh, and the weather outside looks awfully nice today….

How could a professional writer possibly feel that way about his chosen profession? Well, for starters, writing is hard. Even for a pro, the responsibility of writing to a certain standard, every time and on a deadline, can challenge the self-confidence and cause “stage fright” in the form of writer’s block. Also, anyone who does the same thing every single day is likely to get a little restless now and again. Even when I’m writing on a wide range of subjects from one day to the next, the routine is the same. Sit down. Think. Write. Review. Write some more. Review. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. And then there are just some days that aren’t writer-friendly — maybe you’re sick, or tired, or worried about other things.

When you’re a professional, though, none of that matters. Writing is a job. If you work a standard 9 to 5 job, you’re expected to show up on time, do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it, and continue to behave that way on a daily basis, or you won’t have that job very long. Same with writing. If I expect to earn any money, I’d better gain a reputation as a reliable professional who produces quality material on schedule. I’ve written through injuries, influenza, and even a migraine that made it all but impossible to read what I was writing. Why? Because that’s what I’m paid to do.

Beyond economic necessity, though, why does a writer write? There are as many correct answers to that question as there are individual people. Some writers simply enjoy “having written” — the final accomplishment justifies what for them is an unpleasant or tedious process. Others genuinely do live to ride that creative train, enjoying the moment-by-moment transformation of nothing into something. And some of us, believe it or not, have no idea why we write. It’s just something we’ve always done, like eating or breathing. There’s no “because” to it at all. We write because we can’t help it.

I guess I can see now why there’s no book on how to enjoy writing. Either you do or you don’t. The main thing is to do it well — or hire someone who can.

At a recent client meeting I casually mentioned that writing is “a different language” than speaking. My client agreed as if it were an obvious truth, and we went on to talk about other things. It was only after the meeting broke up and I was driving home that I stopped to reflect on what we’d both accepted so easily. Is writing really a different language than speaking? English is English, right? If I say, “The ball rolled down the hill,” do I communicate something vastly different when I write the same sentence? Do you receive a totally different message when you read it as opposed to hearing it?

It’s a fair question. But I stand by my original statement.

I’ve seen this phenomenon in action. Several of my best clients are terrific public speakers. They can light up a room with their personal charisma, and from their opening remarks they have audiences hanging on their every word. But their writing is no match for their speaking. Now, these people don’t suddenly lose their marbles when they sit down to write. They don’t forget all their captivating stories or their gripping message. But they find themselves in a different world, facing a virtual audience instead of a live one. Hands must replace the voice. The rules of the game have changed.

What makes writing such a different skill set from speaking? Here a couple of the main points that occur to me:

Inflection. How many times have you been accused of sounding angry or hurt or sarcastic in an email when you thought you were simply communicating? Chances are, if your friend had heard you say those same words, your emotional state would never have been misinterpreted. No wonder emoticons are so popular — they’ve probably saved many a friendship!

Writing requires a very skilled and subtle use of emotional cues — end a sentence a bit too abruptly, and you may “sound” curt or indifferent; add one too many exclamation points, and you may seem enraged instead of enthusiastic. A writer has to learn this emotional vocabulary, just as an actor or public speaker has to learn the many shadings of tone and pitch that bring color to his performances.

Inflection applies to body English as well. A speaker’s stance and gestures can communicate as deeply as his words. In writing, the words have to carry the full load.

Pace. Time plays out differently in the written world than in the spoken world. I’m no speed reader, but I know I read much faster than normal people talk. Examine your own reading habits sometime — do you go word by word, or do you scan big globs at a time in a flash? Now imagine those words being spoken at the same speed you just read them. It’d be like listening to a recording on fast-forward — you’d hardly be able to make it out. Yet that’s how people receive written information, especially on the Internet, where speed-browsing has become a way of life.

(That’s one of the great challenges of writing web content, by the way — hitting the reader with exactly what he’s looking for so quickly that he stops in mid-browse to read on.)

Spoken communication relies on linear time as a communication tool. The dramatic pause, the sudden leap forward, or the slow drawl all add dramatic punch a speech. Written communication uses tempo changes as well, but the total effect still exists in a compressed time zone.

There are other differences between speaking and writing, to be sure. Maybe I’ll expand on the subject in a future article, or maybe you’d like to contribute your own insights. I’d keep going, but my throat is getting tired….

There was no way I could write that article — no chance, no way, no how.

I sat at my computer desk, utterly convinced that my writing career was over. Time constraints, fatigue, stress, the sniffles, and lack of familiarity with the subject matter had all conspired to dry my brain into an empty husk. I had absolutely nothing left to offer. Writing the article was simply not possible.

I then proceeded to write a very good article, finishing ahead of schedule.

What happened? What magical incantation or secret Eastern mental technique did I employ to go from zero to sixty creatively? The truth is, I didn’t really do much of anything. I just started writing, having despaired of producing anything good or even competent. I just sort of doodled, and a finished article emerged.

But maybe “just doodling” is the key, not only to overcoming writer’s block, but to conquering procrastination in general. I’m convinced, first of all, that writer’s block does exist, though some very prolific writers continue to deny this (mainly on the grounds that they’ve never had it). I’ve experienced many bleak hours of sitting at a keyboard with absolutely no way to start, or continue, or finish, and countless other creative professionals out there know exactly what I mean. It’s just a particular form of procrastination, which in turn is a reaction to anxiety. We dread applying ourselves and seeing less-than-good results, because the perceived reward doesn’t equal the perceived effort. Perfectionists suffer when they produce imperfection.

So what can we do? We can give ourselves permission to fail. We can give up and say, “Well, whatever. I’m scheduled to write, so I’ll just scribble some notes and maybe some of it will be useful later on.” That’s pretty much what I did on the article. I knew I couldn’t write so I settled for “putting a few thoughts down,” and before I knew it, those few thoughts had transformed themselves into a finished, ready-to-print piece of writing. I stopped caring about perfection for a moment, and in doing so I deactivated my inner critic — which freed me to just write, instead of writing and editing simultaneously. You can’t edit what hasn’t been written yet, not without putting yourself into a feedback loop of inactivity.

So my suggestion is, the next time you don’t know what to do or how to do it — do SOMETHING. Screw it up and fix it later. Give yourself permission to fail. You might surprise yourself.

For many years now I’ve enjoyed listening to old broadcasts of “The Goon Show.” This 1950s BBC radio program starring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, and Spike Milligan specialized in a unique brand of surrealistic humor, as if Lewis Carroll had written for the British music hall. The show influenced Monty Python’s Flying Circus and countless other comedy groups. Scriptwriter Milligan’s Goonish humor often devolved into pure nonsense words and phrases such as “spon” (generally used as a noun for some disease or other unwholesome object), “twinge,” and the all-purpose exclamations “Ying tong iddle I po!” and “Needle noddle noo!”

Nonsense words can work brilliantly when used for laughs by gifted radio comedians. In marketing copy, unfortunately, nonsense is usually just nonsense.

What do I mean by nonsense? I’m talking about those “filler” words we use when we can’t think of something more precise or meaningful to say — that comforting babble we fall back to hide the fact that we haven’t given our marketing sufficient thought.

Examples?

!. “Any,” accompanied by its big brothers “anyone” and “anything.” This word is so open-ended that it probably shouldn’t count as a word at all. I’ve heard business owners offer to solve “any kind of (insert service here) problem” for “anyone who needs any help.” What kind of specific image does “anything” evoke in my mind? I get no clear picture of what he does or who his target market is with “any.” And yet businesses still insist on using this non-word as a badge of honor: “Look how widely our services range!” Yeah, right — so widely that I have no clue what they are or aren’t.

2. “Every.” See “any.”

3. “Full-service.” This mind-numbing term makes its insidious appearance time and time again in business descriptions and elevator speeches. I have no idea what it means, and be honest, neither do you. That’s because it has no meaning. “We’re a full-service laundromat.” Really? Does that mean your competitors are — what, 65-percent service? Do their machines only work 4 days out of the week? Do they require you to bring your own water from home? Does “full-service” mean you’ll come to my house and do my ironing for me?

You see? “Full-service” conveys no specifics, gives me no clear mental image of your services or benefits, and implies merely that you’ll do what I paid you for without falling down on the job, which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

Why, then, are these terms so commonplace? We’re used to seeing them, for one thing, so our internal B.S.-meter tends to let them slide. So we end up inadvertently stuffing our marketing copy with filler, then wonder why it isn’t reeling customers in.

The most dangerous kind of incompetence, in my opinion, is the invisible kind — incompetence that goes unnoticed due to its sheer ubiquity. There’s a lot of filler out there, not just in marketing copy but in life. Focusing on the real content makes us more effective at both.

In his useful and fascinating book Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You, the distinguished author Ray Bradbury issues a very interesting command to writers: “DON’T THINK.” From what I’ve read elsewhere, he has kept a sign with this solemn directive over his typewriter as a constant reminder.

Surely writing requires thought. Doesn’t it? The answer, I think, is yes — but only at the right times.

Bradbury’s point is that writers often get in their own way by allowing fears, critical thoughts, and negative self-talk to inhibit their imaginations. These “Yes, but…” thoughts amount to self-censorship, and how can anyone compose and edit at the same time? When any word you write is potentially the “wrong” word, even starting can seem an insurmountable challenge. I recall a cartoon of a writer sitting at his desk, running through his mental checklist: “Okay, plenty of paper…good pen…good backup pen…lamp angle is right…chair is comfortable…the room is warm…perhaps the room is TOO warm….” Self-consciousness is the enemy.

The inner critic threatens every professional, in any field, who sets a high standard for himself. Think of the pressures an Olympic athlete or an internationally-acclaimed musician must face when it’s time to perform. A thousand possible distractions — crowd noises, technical details, health issues, a pounding heart, the nagging “What if” voice begging to be heard — must be put aside before the reflexes, the practiced perfection, can take over and triumph.

DON’T THINK, then, means get out of your own way. Don’t limit yourself before the fact. Let spontaneous creativity bubble up from your subconscious mind without your conscious mind beating it into submission, conformity, and ultimately mediocrity.

But we do have to get the words right! Sure, but that’s what editing is for. Composition is for getting it out; editing is for getting it right. Editing uses a whole different mindset from writing — suddenly you have to turn ruthless in your criticism of the first draft, and the second, and the third. But even here, the word is criticism, not self-criticism. A bad sentence doesn’t make you a bad writer if you fix it. But it’s up to you to summon the discipline and the objectivity to rewrite it into a good sentence.

Meanwhile, the blank page or screen awaits. So be like Bradbury: DON’T THINK!

I’m a fan of the strange and unusual (no jokes about my mirror, please), so I have a strange fascination for those items of popular culture that don’t quite convey their intended message — the “Bloopers, Blunders and Practical Jokes” of the marketing world. You know, the horrendously ill-advised ads and misprinted news headlines Jay Leno is so fond of holding up to ridicule. One of the more famous online shrines to this kind of unintentional hilarity is Engrish.com, where readers submit ads, product labels, etc. from Japan, China, other parts of the world, all sporting jaw-droppingly wrong English usage.

Disclaimer: I have nothing but respect and admiration for any multi-lingual person in any country. However English-challenged these ad writers may be, they probably speak my language far better than I’ll ever speak theirs. They are, no doubt, highly intelligent creative professionals. But they failed to take that simple but crucial final step — checking for accuracy.

Maybe they thought, “Well, nobody here can read it anyway, but the English letters look cool.” On the Engrish.com site you’ll see photos of Japanese consumers wearing hats or shirts proudly displaying a meaningless mishmash of English words. But even if only 1% of the people in a given country can read the language being used, 1% of millions could still equal a lot of egg on the corporate face.

One of my recent favorites is this one. You’d think that a “Branding & Identity” firm would take a second look at this sign….

Okay, so finding and paying overseas proofreaders for English-language materials isn’t as easy as it sounds. But what about those of us who speak, read and write English natively? What’s our excuse for not proofreading or fine-tuning every word and idea until it delivers a precise, powerful, accurate image, either by ourselves or with the aid of a pro?

Take that extra bit of time and care. Outsource the writing/proofreading/editing if you can’t do it yourself. But take any action necessary to avoid creating your own version of Engrish.

Let Leno write his own material!