Hi I’m Elaine Swift and I’m a freelance copywriter. It’s taken me around two years to start blogging but here I am .
I the stuff I write for clients is usually for their marketing materials - websites, brochures, newsletters etc. But I also want to write about the things that interest me and to hear from people who share those interests.
So this is me:
I'd been with the same company for 18 years and one day, standing on a Cornish cliff-top, surrounded by some of the most immense, inspiring landscape in the country, the penny dropped. I was in the wrong job. (I've always been a bit of a late developer ...)
I was head of press and pr for the OK office of a well-known camera brand but all I really enjoyed about it was the writing. However, there's a limit to how many times you can get away with 'Flash of Inspiration' when writing about camera products, and I'd reached it.
I realised I’d lost myself somewhere between leaving art school and becoming part of a corporation. On the last day of the holiday we drove across country and down the opposite coast to Portscatho. We'd seen a shop called the Sea Garden in a magazine and decided to take a look. Of course it was just a desperate attempt to stave off coming back. The shop was closed by the way. It sort of confirmed that I had to sort myself out, and soon.
A couple of weeks later I took a leap of faith and resigned.I’m so glad I did. I’ve met some really inspirational people in the last four years and I’m doing things I never thought I'd have the confidence to do.
I'm no longer stuck in one sector as I write for a wide variety of clients. One minute I'm writing about beauty treatments and the next, construction - and I love that. I get to work with people I like, both as clients and colleagues. There's no back-biting, game playing or office politics, although I do scream and shout at my PC and at myself quite a lot. That always used to cause alarm in the office for some reason.
Yes, it's worrying when I'm about to finish a project and there's nothing immediate on the horizon but at least I get rewarded, recognition and respect for my work now. And I get to wage my war on those insidious invaders of business communications - jargon, buzz-words and lack of clarity.
I've just opened the instructions to a new asthma inhaler. Apparently, 'when a red mark first appears in the indicator window, there are approximately 20 actuations left. So that would be doses would it? And that's probably another entry in itself.
