The Art of Writing For Money

photo by Gnerk

I am a grantmaker.  I am also a fundraiser so that I can continue to be a grantmaker.

We are in the height of the budget season and I am writing a lot of requests to legislators – capital requests for technology and expense requests for programs.  For money to be used to buy equipment and for money to support art activities.  Every so often I write budget testimony to seek funding support from the New York State and from the Queens Borough President.

A lot of different ways to ask for a dollar.

Yes, it is important to know how to write a grant as well as all of these other things.  But the art of writing for money involves other things you may not have thought about

.

Kat Thompson, Community Liaison for NYC Councilman Leroy Comrie,

is crocheting this eye popping bag and is looking for a pattern

for something called a monokini.  Wow!

Listen

It is all about conversation.  If you can listen well, you will learn everything you need to know to turn that conversation into a great relationship that will turn into funding.  Kat and I discovered we both love bright colorful yarn.  I sent her some links to crochet websites and she is going to send me a picture of her monokini.  That is something I have to see.  If you pay attention to the people sitting at the table, you may be surprised at the sound of knitting needles but you will hear the sound of money.

Tell them who you are in seven words or less

Legislators meet with lots of people who need funding.  They like things that are easy to remember.  Tell them who you are in a fistful of words that will startle them into remembering you.  A brief well thought tagline, pitch or elevator speech is a powerful way to impress people with who you are.

Let your passion show

Avoid being boring.  Please.  Legislators will respond to you if you are on a mission that you are passionate about.  Most people will.  Especially if you make them feel needed, that they can help you fulfill your mission that will make the world a better place.  Here’s how Beth Kanter got 40,000 people to donate in one day.  Money follows passion.

Talk about what you both can achieve

This is messaging.  This is strategic speaking.  Can you describe what success looks like for you?  If you can, rephrase it so that this success – increased audience attendance, improved communication tools, higher subscription rates – belongs to you and your legislator.  Share the glory – and the photo op.

Describe your success in one descriptive phrase

“100% acceptance rate, $800,000 in scholarships”

“three full scholarships to Cooper Union”

“a world of art in one borough”

These are examples of recent successes of the Queens Council on the Arts.  We like to create these short catchy phrases to use in our email newsletters, as pull quotes in our annual reports, in press releases.

It makes it easier for people to remember who we are, what we have accomplished, and write a check.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

7 Incredibly Simple Ways To Get People to Love Your Blog

I drew Dan Heath, co-author of Switch, and the keynote speaker at a recent NTen Technology Conference on my iPad

Has this ever happened to you?

You are in a roomful of people who you would love to get to know.  People who are important or influential connectors in your field.  How are you going to make a good impression on them so that they remember you and better yet, want to work with you?

Why people connect

Think about it.  Why do you want to meet certain people?  For world peace?  For a better tomorrow?

People connect to benefit themselves.  Simple and plain.  If you happen to cure cancer along the way, great.  Now why would someone read your blog?  To increase your subscriber list?  To move you to higher in Google search?

Are you kidding?

People will read your blog if it helps them save money, learn how to do something or meet somebody.  To solve a problem or to make their lives better. Think about it.  You search for a deal on airline tickets, how to invest, where to go for fresh gnocchi, etc.  You read blogs that are all about the things you are interested in so that you can learn stuff and connect with similar spirits.  It is all about your readers, not you.

Here’s a simple twist on human nature

There is another reason people go on line.

They like to see themselves in the blogosphere.  People love to see who is responding to their tweets, who liked the photo of themselves they just posted on Facebook, who left a comment on their blog.  They want to be noticed, they want their presence to be acknowledged.  They want other people to see them.

Knowing this, I have a secret weapon for all of you ninjas:

Sketchbook Pro for iPad

How can a drawing program help me?

So glad you asked.

You don’t have to be a portrait artist to do this.  Stick figures, flattering of course, will work just as well with a little creativity on your part.

1. Download SketchBook Pro on your iPad You can get the free version to start off.  If you want more features, the upgraded version is about $7.  Use your stylus to take notes.  I picked one up at the Apple store.  You can also get them online if you Google “cheap iPad stylus”.
2. Use your stylus to capture quick sketches I like doing quick sketches of speakers at conferences.  Here are some of  the smart folks I heard from at the NTen Technology Conference who told us why you should be in the Google nonprofit program.
3. Take photos with your phone camera Can’t draw fast enough?  Can’t draw?  Take pictures of people with your phone camera.  If you have a really nice camera, use it.  Try to get good close ups of their faces.  Many times I produce a sketch from the photos I take.  The great thing about SketchBook Pro is that you can scribble notes on your sketch so if you do a lot of conference blogging like I do, you can capture both text and image.
4. Get business cards This is what I always do:  Go up to the people you have just captured in a sketch or a photo and ask them for their business card.  Smile like a media pro and say,  “I have a great sketch of you and it is going up on my blog.  Do you have a card so I can spell your name right?  I’ll send you a link.”   People will gladly exchange cards with you and remember you with interest.
5. Make notes Whatever people say to you is a story worth remembering.  Try to capture the essence of your conversation in brief notes, I am partial to  seven words or less.  You can use them later as quotes or even as captions
6. Write a hot headline If you write something that piques or provokes interest on top of your sketch, people will be curious and want to read on.  Here’s a great piece on Copyblogger about how to write magnetic headlines.
7. Link and love Remember those business cards?  Link to them if they have a blog or a website.  I like to send a personal email with the link inviting them to read my post and see themselves!

People love seeing themselves drawn and photographed.  And shared with you.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

The Zen Of The Blank Page: How To Bust Through Writer’s Block

photo by Time Grabber

It was a cold and dreary morning.  Clouds in the sky, clouds in my coffee, chance of showers all day.

Perfect!

There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

I am happily prepared for bad weather dressed in my cool white trenchcoat and my silver Donna Karan sneakers which I remember buying months ago thinking to myself that yes, I will need these for a rainy horrible day.  Seth and I once went to the hardware store and came home with my wedding dress.  Talk about being prepared.

Well, what about writer’s block?

There is no such thing as writer’s block, only bad planning.

As the weather warms up, does it cross your mind that eventually you may find yourself on a beach on a very hot sunny day?  Of course you do!  And you go out and get yourself a bathing suit, a pair of flip flops, sunblock, cool shades and a stack of summer reading.  You are ready to rock the beach.

This simple philosophy is true for most things in life and especially for what strikes dread in the hearts of aspiring authors everywhere – writer’s block.

If this is something you know you are going to face, you should put down that pina colada,  shut off the Beach Boys and put down that sexy summer sizzler you are in the middle of reading and picture yourself staring at that blank screen.  What can you do to plan for this?

Here’s are seven do’s and don’ts that work pretty well for me:

1. Do something physical before you sit down to write. Take a brisk twenty minute walk, stretch, take a deep breath and touch your toes.  If you can get your blood moving, your creative juices can’t be far behind.

2. Don’t come to your desk emptyhanded. Some of you may interpret that to mean a plate full of chocolate chip cookies.  Not a bad idea but not what I meant.  When you are ready to write, bring all of the observations you have made throughout the day, the five headlines you wrote for your next blog posts, an outline for a series of articles you are thinking of writing – notice how I am speaking in plural.  If you can think of one story, you can think of several.  Make lots of lists and bring a fistful of them to your writing.

3. Do a quick straightening up around your work area. Clutter is the great mind killer.  You will work so much better when your surroundings are not chaotic.  Bring a calming sense of order and space to you writing area.  Make sure you have all the tools that you need at the ready.

4. Don’t just warm up, set up. If you simply can’t get started, common wisdom would tell you to do some kind of warm up.  I prefer to jump right in and do something that gets me somewhere faster.  Forget the warm up.  Just set up your writing.  If you need to produce a week’s worth of blog posts like I do, set up five draft posts with titles and sub headings on one day, add links and footer text the next day, images or videos the following day, until you have set up every one of your posts.  Once you have all that infra structure done, you will be surprised at how quickly you will be able to write.  If you are writing a longer article, put down an outline so you can see how it will flow.  I like to include notes like, “open with a short punchy sentence”  or “descriptive narrative with quotes”.

5. Do give yourself a high five for whatever you accomplished. We so often remember to beat ourselves up for not doing everything we set out to do.  A much better way to approach this is to appreciate what we have done.  It is important to recognize the effort and the work we have done so that we look forward to doing it again.

6. Don’t leave your desk without a list for tomorrow. This is one of my favorite things to do.  The very last thing I do before I leave my desk is my to-do list.  I feel better parking the things I did not get to on a list that I will get to the next day.  Having this list gives me a clear sense of what I am going to do and allows me to think about each item on the list ahead of time.

7. Do this often so it becomes a habit. It gets easier.  You are all busy and you have to seize the time to write.  Writer’s block is the last thing you need.  Following just a few of these tips will help you tremendously in maximizing your time so you can actually enjoy your writing experience.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Where is Your Batcave?

This post first appeared on the Queens Council on the Arts blog

my desk at the Writers Room

Are you an urban ninja?

If you live in a jungle, you will need to know where to find food and shelter.  If you spend time underwater, it is helpful to know where the coral reefs are.  No matter what world you are a citizen of, your survival depends on your knowledge of the environment and, more importantly, how to navigate it.

I am a writing machine.  I may appear to be a slightly flustered nonprofit executive director en route to another meeting but no! – do not be fooled by my facade.  Its my way of gathering material.

And what I need in my environment is a place to write.  Enter the Writers Room, an urban writing colony on Broadway and that is a picture of the desk where some of my best writing emerges.

Feel like taking a coffee break?  Slip into the kitchen and sip your brew while talking a little shop with other writers.  How about a nap?  There are several large inviting recliners and a couch where you can relax by a large window with a great view of the city.

This is one of my secret gardens of bliss in New York City.  If you are a writer who needs a place to write, check out the Writers Room.

Katherine’s field office

Meet before you pitch

If you have a merry-go-round of meetings like I often do, here’s another way to get off the ride and regroup.  This is the time Katherine, my consultant extraordinaire, and I spend a lot of time sitting with legislators doing a one two punch round of funding request pitches.  Clearly, we needed a bull pen of some kind to get our game together.  Katherine found this little place on the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway tucked in the back of a Starbucks.  It is great place to get it together.

This is a city with a lot going on all the time.  If you are part of it, you will need to stop the pinball with your flippers every so often and halt the game, take a deep breath, take in the moment -

- and then let the game resume.  When you are ready.

You need places like these.

photo by Leandro

Where is your batcave?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

How To Write The Great American Sentence

photo by knowsnotmuch

Make each one matter

A sentence is a literary thought.  It is a tiny universe that reveals enough to convince you of its reality and entices you to explore further.  What is not said is as important as what is said, for that is the space the author leaves for the reader.

Readers skim.  Make sure whereever their eyes land, they will land on a great sentence whether you are writing a ghost story or a grant.  I keep reminding myself that great writing happens, one sentence at a time.

Be a verbal ninja.  Wield words like weapons.

Be brief

Strunk & White taught me to cut out unnecessary words.  Adjectives, adverbs.  Use nouns and verbs.  Powerful ones.  Where one word suffices, use only one word.  This advice is harder than it sounds.  How much easier it is to convey the image in your mind through miles of descriptive narrative.  Much more difficult to strip all that away and to trust the reader to use her imagination to create her own image.

To be brief is to be bold.

Study great models

David Foster Wallace

I read an article by Sam Anderson who reviewed “The Pale King” by David Foster Wallace in the New York Times and he listed six great sentences by Wallace:

“Hell hath no fury like a coolly received postmodernist”

“Like most North Americans of his generation, Hal tends to know way less about why he feels certain ways about the objects and pursuits he’s devoted to than he does about the object and pursuits themselves.”

“What I know about auto racing could be inscribed with a dry Magic Marker on the lip of a Coke bottle.”

“The top seed this weekend is Richard Krajicek, a 6’5″ Dutchman who wears a tiny white billed hat in the sun and rushes the net like it owes him money and in general plays like a rabid crane.”

“One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.”

“What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.”

James Wood

My favorite favorite favorite literary critic writes brilliant, thorny, metaphoric sentences that grab you by the throat and leave you panting for more.  Here are a few of my favorites:

“J.M. Coetzee’s distinguished novels feed on exclusion; they are intelligently starved.”

“English modernism must be measure in units of exhaustion or negation.”

“Chekhov may be divine, but he is responsible for much sinning on earth.”

“The hypocrite, among other things, may be a deformed ambassador of the truth.”

Saul Bellow

Does anyone make you feel alive like Bellow does?  His prose puts your nose in the essence of living.

“The old flooring burned gratefully – the funeral of exhausted objects.”

“Trying to breathe, he gripped the table and rose on his toes like a cock about to crow.”

“Oh so much human thread being wound on the most trivial spools.”

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?