Wayne’s Weekly Hacks: The Write Stuff

The hacks you read here come from my 55 years as a social change leader, my 45 years as a writer of 13 books, thousands of articles and hundreds of leaflets, and my ten years as a career, social media, and strategy coach for the next generation’s champions of good food. 

FIND THE WRITE STUFF FOR EVERYDAY WORDSMITHING

This newsletter, thanks to newsletter promoter Bryan Harris, adds systems or frameworks which surround skills and knowledges. Another Internet marketer, Kim Garst, lays out systematization approaches clearly here.

Big Food is finally in retreat, as this article confirms.

With the help of newfound ‘write’ skills, knowledges, and systems, food movement leaders now have an unprecedented opportunity to make progress!!

 Writing is critical

In today’s world, the power of the written word is at its peak. Never have so many people had so much daily access to so many different forms of writing. Billions read and write posts, e-mails, blogs, cards, invitations, proposals, and references. As a result, improving your everyday writing is the easiest way to ramp up your impact as a champion of good food. 

Your writing creates a stronger first impression than your clothes, appearance or handshake. Some people may judge you by your Oxford commas. Others may conclude you are too edgy, smartass, badass, inarticulate, or stiff. Your writing will open or close doors. 

The quality of your writing doubles the chances someone will open your item. Then it doubles the chance the person will read right through it. All this used to be done in person or by phone. Now it’s done through writing.  

That’s why this newsletter features the skills of everyday writing — or copywriting. 

When so much time and impact hinges on writing skills, why not invest ten minutes of your time now learning exercises to double or quadruple the muscle power of your writing.

It’s an opportunity to treat writing as an empowerment tool entirely under your control. 

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” Richard Bach

How to do a killer……

Copywriting skills are “meat and potatoes” writing — a more enticing subject line over an email, a grabbier headline on a blog, a snappier media release, a more inviting call to action.   

I spent a lot of time following Google trails to come up with these recommendations for food enthusiasts.

This link helps with media releases.

This link shows how you issue a “call to action” (what I call a request for action). 

Catchy subject lines over emails help yours stand out from 105 billion emails that go out (often unopened) every day. People do judge a book by its cover and decide on opening an email by its subject line. 

The blogosphere sees 70 million new posts every month. These headline tips dangle a bright and shiny object over your post, and might even land you on Google.

Grammarly redlines all my spelling and grammar mistakes. Of 5,952,286 words I’ve written under their watch since 2017, they have corrected me 279 times on missing commas, 102 times on missing articles, and countless times on misspelled words. That saved me from countless furrowed slurs of my reputation by tut-tutters who suffer through such mistakes as an assault on their dignity. 

Here’s Grammarly’s advisory on tone in writing.

Tone can cause or solve a lot of problems.  I’ve taken tone seriously ever since I got into a week-long email row with a senior manager at Toronto Public Health. The back-and-forth went on until our top boss said “why don’t you two tone it down and talk face-to-face?” That worked!! 

I also use Hemingway. It’s an editing program that nudges you to write short, lively and simple sentences. It’s easy to get flustered by the software’s endless insults to your precious words. But I remind myself that Ernest himself, author of The Old Man and The Rewrite, had written:

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.”
Earnest Hemingway

Get to the Point

Barry Martin is the creative force behind Hypenotic, a communications firm that helps me and many other Toronto food organizers gain our footing on the web. 

Barry writes strategically. “Good writing is clear thinking made visible,” he likes to say. The thinking – what he calls the pre-work – creates the foundation. 

That reminded me of an Einstein quip. Einstein once said that that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend 55 minutes figuring out the best question. Then he would answer the question within five minutes. 

Barry had a similar story about a saying of US President Abe Lincoln: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the ax.” Writing is important, Barry concedes. But tinkering with words or grammar can’t help a poorly-aimed point hit its target. 

In today’s rushed and crowded Internet age, he says, “ASAP is the deliverable.” The mission critical of good writing is to “get to the point as quickly as possible.”   

That means spending “as much time as necessary to know what point you’re trying to make to whom. Why should they care? What would help them make a decision? What data and narratives will help them see what they need?”

Three years ago, Barry dedicated most of the year to hone his writing skills. His tip to me? Read brain specialist Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style.

Look Back

We can learn lots of skills and knowledges from people who are no longer with us. Please check out this tribute to Reggie Modlich, a longtime friend, comrade and neighbour who expanding the horizons of city planners in a way that opened them to food as well. Before planners had to deal with food advocates, they had to deal with feminists. Feminists were the among the first to insist that planning was about solving problems of everyday people, not just developers and technocrats.

Good Read 

Reviewer Letitia Henville did an insightful and brief review of a book on influencers, public intellectuals, and op-ed writers. 

Experts need to be good writers – accessible in their use of words, and crystal clear in their presentation of information and connections.

Henville adds another critical element. Experts need to be better listeners. How easy is it to forget this elementary rule of engagement! Success is engaging a person, not just passing on your message. One-way streets may be fast, but writing that engages and communicates can only come from a two-way street.  

Good writing comes from good listening, so listen up to Henville.

“we’re all learning here; the best listeners will end up the smartest”
Josh Bernoff

Wayne’s Latest 

I’m delighted to have an article in a special issue of Urban Agriculture Magazine dealing with food policy councils.

It’s a great read, well-designed, and full of information not available elsewhere. The magazine profiles a potpourri of visionary enthusiasms from around the world. Each council is different, but all are making waves by combining grassroots citizen engagement with policy-making for a sustainable and just food system. 

The article I wrote (with my wife, Lori Stahlbrand) discusses the need to update our understanding of food policy by moving toward “critical food guidance.”

Wayne’s Later Latest

Steven Biggs is Canada’s leading garage gardener and nursemaid to backyard figs. His radio show is every bit as eclectic. I’m one of four people he interviewed in his October program. 

I talk about the background of policy controversies about urban agriculture.

Request for Action