Typing for grocery money…

I was thinking today about all the things I’ve written.

These thoughts (along with fantasies of joyous early retirement) came to mind as I was suffering from writer’s block — which was quite obvious to the person I report to as she commented that I sure was walking around the office a lot — what she says is a sure sign that Christine is trying to write something.

The other thing I do is use multiple expletives in a long unbroken long chain. I do this in my office and I don’t think I’m loud (I’m convinced it is under my breath) but once a colleague who sits nearby popped her head in asked if I was okay. She was fairly new at the time — I imagine she’s used to it by now and knows it’s just a sign that words are not magically appearing on my computer screen.

So there I was (not typing and swearing periodically) thinking about all the things I’ve written.

I’ve written (in no order):

• news releases
• public service announcements
• newspaper articles
• opinion pieces
• ad copy
• poster text
• brochures on myriad topics
• newsletters
• a chapter about getting your message out on community television
• radio copy
• quarterly highlights for a major industrial interest (I needed a new bar of soap every three months but they seemed to go over well — I kept on doing them)
• magazine articles
• visual identity guidelines
• web style guidelines
• creative briefs
• proposals
• reports
• pleas for more time to complete a project couched as memos
• regular old memos
• correspondence
• speeches I have given (not that many)
• speeches others have given
• web copy
• banner ads
• two poems published in a (now defunct) literary journal

Once I get going I’m fine. Heck, I’m even pretty good at it but sometimes I think it would be more pleasant to design furniture or plan neighbourhoods — two other things I think I would’ve also enjoyed had I not been seduced by Edward Bernays.

The one thing I don’t think would be pleasant is being a novelist. I think many people who write (PR-ish, PR-y?) things think about writing books but I don’t think I could ever do it — if I didn’t die from drinking all that Tide, I’d wear a path in the carpet around my lonely (novelists don’t have co-workers) desk.