Dear Fairy Tale Believers,
Ten years ago, everything was falling apart. I had suffered a nervous breakdown, closed my law practice, and had no prospects. My life was a spectacular failure.
I needed a way to make money, and I stumbled into the world of internet content writing and copywriting.
It changed my life. I have been a working writer longer than I was a lawyer, and I have made more money as a writer than I ever made as a lawyer. Building my copywriting business has given me the time and resources to create art.
I’ve published two full-length haiku collections, two illustrated haiku zines, and a prose poetry graphic novel.
And I have so much more to create and publish.
But it all started with a copywriting course I took.
I can’t remember the exact title, but I do remember it felt like a scam—lots of promises of riches and barefoot beach writing.
However, there was one exercise that has done more to improve my writing than anything else I’ve ever tried.
Whenever someone asks me for any type of writing advice, whether it’s for prose, poetry, or copywriting, I tell them about this exercise—and almost nobody ever does it.
The exercise is simple. All you do is find a piece of writing you love and copy it down by hand—no typing allowed! The exercise works best if you copy the piece of writing five times or more.
You can see why this exercise isn’t popular. But it works like magic. In the context of copywriting, the idea is to write out a long sales letter or advertisement.
You need to know a few things about me. My handwriting is so bad I almost flunked out of kindergarten because of it. I never mastered cursive and still print when I have to use a pen and paper.
Once when I was eleven, I wrote down a message for my dad. He saved the message for a week and asked me to read it—I couldn’t. It was all chicken scratch. I had a high school English teacher that insisted we write in cursive on every test. I warned her that I couldn’t do it. She demanded I try. After the first quiz, she gave me special permission to print.
I hate writing stuff by hand. But I was so desperate for this copywriting thing to work that I tried this insane exercise.
I still remember toiling away, carefully copying an old full-page newspaper ad about piano lessons on a yellow legal pad. My hands kept cramping and my wrists ached for days.
After copying the ad so many times, I realized I had absorbed the structure of the ad and the rhythm of the words.
Writing my own sales copy became much easier. I repeated this exercise with several other ads, and each time my skills grew exponentially.
Later I began using this technique on prose I loved and poetry that moved me. It always improved the quality of my work.
It’s been a while since I’ve copied anything down by hand. But the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Ada Limon, and I’ve been itching to copy some of her verses. Her poetic structure is so pristine and the musicality of her work makes me want to dance.
Most people skip this drill, or they try and type it instead. But the real trick is to handwrite the piece. It uses different parts of the brain. Something about the alchemy of reading, physically writing, and thinking becomes a growth tonic for your skills.
I still give writers this advice because it is one of the most profound ways to experience the work of a great writer, and it’s the fastest way I know to get better.
Tonight, I’m going to handwrite an Ada Limon poem a few times. I challenge you to find something you love and to copy it by hand at least once.
Please leave a comment if you try this!
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
Brilliant and yes, it's about the way the brain is wired! I have a client in a half hour and then these arthritic hands are going to break out pen and paper and do this. Not sure with what yet.
Being of generation x, my brain absorbs and retains better with handwriting. I copy a lot of stuff but not multiple times. I will definitely try this. Especially with French passages to help improve my French. Thanks!!