Well, this looks important. It even says so. “Important Notification for New Jersey State Residents,” right there on the cover. I’d better hurry and open it!

So, I hurriedly tear off the perforated sides … because that’s always fun … and this is what I see. An offer for books. Apparently the rush was to tell me that they are holding a “leather-bound Collector’s Edition of Huckleberry Finn” JUST for me, and for only $5.95!

A little sneaky, that. It did get me to open it, which is the point, though my very first reaction was, “It’s just a direct mail piece, that’s not important.” So they should consider themselves lucky I read further (grin).

It turns out, these lovely people will give me the chance to buy copies of the 100 greatest books ever written. It’s not a book club, they hasten to reassure me. They “simply offer the option to choose the books I wish to own.”

The reply card is tucked behind a piece of cellophane, with a reply envelope. A nice touch that kept all the loose pieces together when I opened the offer. No paper spilling onto the floor.

As unsolicited mailings go, this was a good one. They reassure me right away that I am under no obligation. They list the advantages of trying their books (leather binding, gilt page edging, full-color illustrations). They point out that the no-obligation price for this copy is $5.95, but also tell me the regular price for the other “greatest books” is $39.95. Which is where they lost me, incidentally. I’m not interested in spending that much money for a book, as a rule, preferring to get two or three (or four) books for that amount. But, still if the quality is there, I suppose it’s not unreasonable.

The important thing is that the people who put the mailing together were up-front about the details. No sneaky stuff in the fine print, or trying to mislead me … well, other than the “important message” on the outside, but that was just to get me to open the thing, and after that they were direct and honest, so, I suppose I can’t really complain.

I spent some time with one of my friends and her 6-year old twins recently. They came to visit with a big pile of first-level reading books, and we adults had a chance to help them over the hard parts.

I don’t know about you, but I remember learning to read. I remember getting stuck and needing help because, well, English can be tricky. But there were some things that surprised me.

Remember Your Audience

Some of the sentences in these books were well above the reading level of my friend’s twins. Just because what you’re writing makes perfect sense to you, doesn’t mean your audience doesn’t need a little hand-holding.

Keep it Simple

We already know you’ve got a masterful vocabulary, but that doesn’t mean you need to pull it out and show it off. Your objective is to get your point across, not to dazzle. I was mentally editing some of these books as I read them, because the authors seemed to be writing in what they THOUGHT was a child’s reading level but was really far too complex. My friend’s twins are smart and have good working vocabularies, but they don’t exactly have the reading part down yet. Save the elaborate stuff for a LITTLE later in the process. Don’t scare your readers away by being too complicated too quickly.

Don’t Take Shortcuts

My friend and I were shocked to find the contraction “I’m” in her son’s new book. This was a book geared to beginning readers, just past the “See Spot Run” stage, but well before they’d understand the concept of contractions. It’s one thing to use them when you’re talking, but shouldn’t they learn to read full words first, before they need to learn the shortcuts? Spell out the jargon and acronyms at the beginning to avoid sounding like a code that needs to be broken.

Make it Exciting

Above all, we should be making reading fun, exciting, wonderful. Something to capture imaginations and make pulses race. How else can we initiate non-readers into the wonderful world that words create?

Yes, we are all adults, and most of us write for adults (or near-adults), so you might be thinking, “Why should I care about these tips, Deb? Kids don’t read my web copy.”

The point, though, is that writers LOVE words. We live and breathe them. We notice them when people speak them, we remember them when telling stories. We spot typos in menus and inconsistencies in books. We love the way words play together, create imagery and whole worlds.

Sometimes, though, we get so caught up in the act of writing, we forget that a lot of our readers really just aren’t that interested. How many friends do you have that never pick up a book to read? Who find sitting and reading anything longer than three paragraphs a chore?

Hard as it is for you and me to believe, a lot of people don’t like to read.

It therefore behooves us … we writers whose lives revolve around words … to be ambassadors to those poor benighted folks who simply are not interested. We should be making it easy for them, not hard.

Thank you, Lillie, for awarding me the Happy 101 Award.

As she puts it:

“To accept the award, I am to list ten things that make me happy, then pass the award to five other bloggers. Our society so often focuses on the negative rather than positive, on what’s wrong rather than what’s right, on unhappiness rather than happiness. So I’m delighted to talk about things that make me happy and hope you take a few minutes to think about what makes you happy as well.”

Sounds awesome.

So … 10 things that make me happy.

1. My dog, Chappy. Honestly, just looking at him makes me smile, and having him in the house is like having a permanent ray of sunshine.

2. The rest of my family, too. Naturally, the rest of the family is on the list, too. My parents, who are two of my best friends (hence the reason we still all live together). My sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew … all also put smiles on my faces. I am blessed to have a family that I like as well as love. No dreading the family holidays here!

3. Books. It’s no secret that I adore books and reading. There are few things in this world that I like better than a chance to curl up on the couch with a brand-new book by a favorite author.

4. Movie Night. Every Saturday, Mom and I watch a movie together. Usually it’s an old favorite, sometimes it’s a new one, but just about every Saturday at 8:00 we sit down together and watch something we love.

5. Knitting and spinning. You may not know (or remember) this about me, but I knit. A lot. I spin my own yarn, too, and there’s nothing quite so satisfying as running wool through your fingers and transforming it into something else. That it’s often something you can wear is just a bonus.

6. Baking. I also love to putter around the kitchen, assembling goodies to munch on, and catering to my sweet tooth.

7. My home. After the financial melt-down last year and needing to leave our home of 34 years, I am truly grateful for having a nice home in a nice location, one that we’ve all finally–even my dog–settled into.

8. My day job. Yes, really. Not only does it make meeting the rent on this home possible, but it’s in an office w ith people I’ve worked with for 19 years. The job, the position, has developed just for me, so it fits me like a glove. And, even better? There are occasional slow patches when I sometimes cheat and write. (But don’t tell my boss!)

9. Chuck, Castle, White Collar, Leverage … Yes, I DO watch television, and these are some of my favorites–especially Chuck. (If you follow me on Twitter you already know that I talk about almost nothing else on Monday nights.) These are four of my current favorites, along with Burn Notice and the Mentalist, and they make the list because they are clever, funny, dramatic, and stuffed full of just pure entertainment.

10. You. Need I say how much I appreciate all of you fine folks? I’m grateful every day that I live in the information age where I can not only learn whatever I need to know in an instant, but that I get to socialize with all of you, too.

Now, as to the five people I want to share this award with? Bloggers who make me happy?

1. Quinn Cummings at QC Report. She’s clever, she’s funny, she’s a delightful writer, and now she video-blogs, too. She does it all.

2. The Rejectionist because it’s remarkably amusing, reading all the reasons people’s books get rejected. (You know, people other than me.)

3. Liz Strauss from the Successful Blog, because it’s hard to think of somebody else who spreads as many good feelings.

4. Franklin Habit from the Panopticon. Yes, it’s primarily a knitting blog, but I’ve got to tell you, it’s hilarious knitting blog, whether you knit or not.

5. Susan Gibbs from the Juniper Moon Fiber Farm, an inspiring blog from a former CBS news producer who left the Big City to become a shepherd.

Oh, and a bonus mention for my Mom, just because. (But then, I already told you that she makes me happy.)

I recently received a copy of Food Network magazine–to which I tried a trial subscription a year ago–with this letter pasted to the cover.

“Important Subscriber Notice” is emblazoned across the top, with a warning that, “This is a reminder that your current subscription term is ending, but as a part of our Continuous Service program, your subscription will automatically renew unless you tell us to stop.”

To my knowlege, publishers are legally required to alert people before they are automatically billed for a subscription (a requirement of which I entirely approve). I thought this presentation of that “tickler letter” was pretty creative, first of all.

When I tell you this was pasted onto the cover–I mean exactly that. It wasn’t just an insert into the polybag the magazine arrived in. It wasn’t an “attached renewal” that was stuffed into an envelope in the bag, that saved postage but otherwise looked like a regular renewal. No, this was literally stuck to the cover, like a giant post-it note. Impossible to miss.

It very clearly states that this is not a bill. “No action on your part is necessary to renew.”

All-in-all, pretty clever, right? It makes sure you can’t miss it. It doesn’t permanently deface the actual issue. It’s polite and clear in its message.

There’s only one problem.

There, in the small print? “You can cancel your subscription or automatic continuous service charges at any time by writing ‘cancel’ on your invoice and returning it in the envelope we provide, visiting our website or forwarding your request to….”

First, and most importantly, there was no provided envelope and since this particular letter is NOT a bill … what invoice am I supposed to be writing “cancel” on?

Second, I tried going to the website and … once I found the customer service section (which took a while), there was an option for cancelling the subscription. Except, that looked like it would cancel it right away, instead of just letting it run to expire (which would be my preference), and I didn’t see any option at all for just removing the “auto-renew” code so that I could get regular, printed renewal notices, which would be my second choice.

I didn’t hate the magazine, you see, but I don’t remember signing up for the automatic-renewal program (hence the legal requirement of the reminder). I just prefer to be the one to decide when and if my magazine subscriptions get renewed, so the fact that I somehow got entered as an auto-renew sub … my guess is there was small print on the original direct mail order card I sent back … is not my preference.

They didn’t waste the inside/back of the letter, either, but took the chance to remind readers of all the benefits of subscribing. Because, it would have been silly to leave the flip side empty, right?

One more note–I liked the judicious use of color. The entire piece is primarily black and white, except for a few elements in shades of green–just enough to catch your eye, but not enough to be (1) distracting or (2) overly expensive to print. The actual letter text (“Dear Valued Reader, I appreciate you being a reader…”) is in a box that visually separates it from the “jargon,” if you will. It’s actually the least important part of this page, and therefore printed in a smaller font, and kept separate, like a sidebar.

Ultimately, I liked this delivery method, I thought it was creative and effective. When you write direct mail pieces or subscription letters, you DREAM of having fool-proof ways of making somebody at least see (if not read) your piece.

I just wish whoever had written this had thought through the “write cancel and return in the envelope” bit a little more carefully. It’s like a glaring error in an otherwise perfect piece.

Edited to add: It’s good that I held this before publishing this post because about two weeks later, I got an Invoice in the mail saying it was for the automatic renewal, and please pay now. It doesn’t seem very cost-effective, but at least it explains what invoice they meant I should write “cancel” on if I wasn’t interested.

You’ve heard writers telling you to eliminate extra words, to tighten up your prose, right? It’s so easy to write with careless zeal, lassoing every word we come across, willy-nilly, just to rope it into our work. If 50 words are good, 60 must be better. There’s no such thing as too long! If we’re too strict with our word usage, our writing is going to sound prim and soulless, and who wants that?

Well, it’s true that a few extraneous words won’t hurt, but … why? Why have them around? Five extra pounds around your waistline might not hurt much, either, but it’s still better to get rid of them. (Or at least keep it to five pounds, not fifteen or fifty.) Moderation is key, even in writing.

How about a live example?

Elle was sure that Edward overestimated her ability to cope. He could know with his mind that this would be an enormous adjustment, but he was so used to being watched and criticized and judged that he did not–could not–realize how hard a transition it was for her. Maybe she was, as he insisted, suited to being “royal,” but that was very different than actually being royal. It was like the difference between being smart and being educated. She might have an instinct for this kind of life in her bones, but that did not make the living or the learning any easier.

Yes, it’s all a little flabby.

Elle thought Edward overestimated her ability to cope. He knew this was an enormous adjustment, but he was so used to being watched he did not realize how hard the transition was. He kept telling her this was in her blood, but she still felt like an imposter. Like the difference between being smart and being educated, she might have the instinct in her bones, but that did not make learning to use it any easier.

Changes:

• “Elle thought” instead of “Elle was sure that.” “Thought” may not be the best verb, but it’s still stronger than the passive “was sure that”
• Same thing with “He could know with his mind that” and “He knew.” Not only was the original unduly wordy and round-about, how else do you know things but with your mind?
• I took out the triad of “watched, criticized, and judged” because the repetition and rhythm did nothing for the sentence. Same with the “did not/could not.”
• Changed “Maybe she was, as he insisted, suited to being “royal,” but that was very different than actually being royal,” to “He kept telling her this was in her blood, but she still felt like an imposter.” The original sentence also had a round-about structure (“Maybe she was, as he insisted, suited to…”), as well as a completely unnecessary use of italics and quotations. In fact, I kept nothing from the original.
• Combined the last two sentences into one, more streamlined sentence.

Is the second variation perfect? No, but for just a couple minutes’ worth of editing, it’s stronger and more streamlined. It also went from 103 words down to 76.

Easy, right? Now you just have to apply this to everything you’ve written … piece of cake!