The Pen is Alluring but a Writer’s Life—A Breeze or a Tornado?

For the last 5 years I have been crafting website content. The thought of sharing this journey arose not because I simply wanted to travel back in time and reflect what course life had taken, instead to highlight aspects which often remain undisclosed in the world of online journalism. It is off late that people look up when they learn that you are into content. But the industry in its nascent stages failed to be recognized worthwhile. How does a business create a strong value proposition and carve out an online presence without top-notch and relevant content? How does it promote its products and services, and build brand awareness without effective copy? Can the thought leaders reach out to the target audience without well researched marketing collaterals? Well, the answer is no. Here is when content comes to rescue.

Take the likes of Accenture and McKinsey. Their online presence is several degrees stronger and more impressive than their counterparts. A visit to the website speaks volumes about an organization. And who is the person entrusted with the responsibility to create the website—the developer, the graphic designer and the writer (for the copy). Well, once I have highlighted the role of the content developer, let me take you through how my life as a writer unfurled.

I began freelancing in 2012 when one of my social contacts was generous enough to introduce me to the world of copy. Soon after working with a few international clients, I realized it was time to take up a desk job, with heavy workload if I wanted to hone my skills. Soon I was churning out large volumes without even thinking of the quality. I had no benchmarks in mind. I was simply putting down what came to my mind after minimal secondary research.
After a year, I shifted to one of the better digital marketing agencies. Here I got the opportunity to write on varied domains such as tea, health, fashion to name a few. I realized the importance of primary research where you collate data through face to face interviews. For tea, I took part in a tea tasting session which was an experience in itself. For health, I spoke to yoga practitioners and for Indian fashion, gathered inputs from a lady who had a mention in the Guinness Book for discovering new ways to wear the six-yard.

From this agency, I moved on to a market research organization. I knew it was a risky venture as I was shifting to technical writing, completely unexplored territories without prior experience. The first day I was clueless on how a case study differed from a caselet. I had never read a whitepaper. Did not know how brochures and flyers were different. Everything seemed alien. The first deliverable was a disaster. I had no idea how to express technical details in crisp, business language. My creative streak and flair soon became an impediment. I feared whether I had taken the worst decision of my life.
But, I was given the time to learn the skills, gather domain understanding and gradually build an aptitude to understand raw inputs and refine them into publishable collaterals. Without me realizing, in the course of one and half years, I was developing technical blogs with ease. I did not break into a sweat at the mention of a whitepaper. Neither did I fumble during business calls with subject matter experts.

All I can be thankful for is my experienced colleagues who were patient and my ability to not lose faith till I became acquainted with terminologies such as AI, IoT, NLP, SaaS and several others. It is technology which excites me now and the fear of not being able to perform does not haunt me further.

So you see what the mere word “content” can involve. Just a flair for the language is not sufficient. It entails a lot more. All professions have their buried tales and here was a revelation of mine!