{"id":3382,"date":"2008-07-18T12:41:45","date_gmt":"2008-07-18T19:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=3382"},"modified":"2008-07-18T14:03:26","modified_gmt":"2008-07-18T21:03:26","slug":"project-bloodhound-write-with-a-reader-in-mind-but-write-to-that-readers-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3382\/project-bloodhound-write-with-a-reader-in-mind-but-write-to-that-readers-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Bloodhound: Write with a reader in mind — but write to<\/em> that reader’s mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Green is a great believer in the power of the media to promote a business, where I am quite a bit more skeptical. He asked me once about the commercial value of my column in the Arizona Republic<\/em>. Quoting former Vice President John Nance Garner on the value of that elective office, I said, “It’s not worth a bucket of warm spit.” Dan loves the mot juste<\/em> — and I will promise you that, in reality, Garner was more redolent in his retort. But: We just did the math lately and it turns out I’m wrong. The Republic<\/em> column is worth $1,800 an hour — while I’m writing it.<\/p>\n

The essence of good writing — the gist of the mot juste<\/em> — is to sweep the reader along with you as you go. The corpus of writing is enshrouded in rules, but the rules don’t mean anything if the reader doesn’t care enough to participate. It’s a tragedy to be ignored entirely, but it seems to me still worse to be missed — to be skimmed and scanned and dismissed without ever having been read. I play the way I do, when I write — not as prose, not even as poetry, but as a kind of scat music where the sounds and the meanings of the words play off of each other like kittens and a butterfly on opposite sides of a window — I play this way both to reward attention and to penalize<\/em> inattention. If you don’t read me with your whole mind, you won’t get it — and that’s the idea.<\/p>\n

This is writing about writing, the most perfectly human<\/em> action there is, and this is the one place you can turn to in the RE.net where the minds are serious enough to write about writing. Teri Lussier was talking about our archives<\/a>, and I wish we had some organization to them. I wish I could send you off just to all of the many posts we have written about writing — some our own work, some extended quotations from giants of English literature.<\/p>\n

There’s this, at least, Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Green is a great believer in the power of the media to promote a business, where I am quite a bit more skeptical. He asked me once about the commercial value of my column in the Arizona Republic. Quoting former Vice President John Nance Garner on the value of that elective office, I said, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3235,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3235\/buzz-bissinger-blasts-bloggers\/","url_meta":{"origin":3382,"position":0},"title":"Buzz Bissinger Blasts Bloggers","author":"Brian Brady","date":"June 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In the ultimate irony, sportswriter Buzz Bissinger blasts Will Leitch of Deadspin.com for his sports blog with language more appropriate for a blog than television. See the 15 minute video here. TWO COOL FACTS CAME OUT: 1- The average age of a newspaper reader is 55 years old. 2- Only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2695,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2695\/bloodhound-lit-the-art-science-and-business-of-writing-interesting-and-profitable-real-estate-weblog-posts\/","url_meta":{"origin":3382,"position":1},"title":"Bloodhound Lit: The art, science and business of writing interesting and profitable real estate weblog posts","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"By his good example, Kevin Warmath reminds you to get busy on your BloodhoundBlog Black Pearl Diver\u2019s contest entry. We're about to talk about writing, so let me remind you that I wrote a post on how to write a Black Pearl Diver\u2019s contest entry that advances your interests --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4600,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4600\/project-bloodhound-viva-las-vegas-pays-out-in-black-pearls\/","url_meta":{"origin":3382,"position":2},"title":"Project Bloodhound: Viva Las Vegas pays out in Black Pearls","author":"Teri Lussier","date":"September 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Blog World and companion conference, REBlog World, have ended. Kudos to Todd Carpenter and Jason Berman for putting REBlog World together, very nice to meet both of you. I completely agree with Eric Blackwell that the relationships matter. I agree with Inman Connect and NAR Convention goers that what happens\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3279,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3279\/project-bloodhound-how-to-write-headlines-for-your-real-estate-weblog-posts-that-deliver-the-goods-and-deliver-google-results\/","url_meta":{"origin":3382,"position":3},"title":"Project Bloodhound: How to write headlines for your real estate weblog posts that deliver the goods — and deliver Google results","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A headline on a weblog post is a differentiator -- this entry is different from all the others -- but that's not a very useful lens for understanding headlines. A serial number -- A37592x -- is a differentiator, too. A headline can serve the same purpose as a headline in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/119\/you-buy-something-you-pay-mkay\/","url_meta":{"origin":3382,"position":4},"title":"You buy something, you pay, m’kay?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Friday can be my dread day. I write a small real estate column for the West Valley sections of the Arizona Republic. That is not nearly as sexy as it sounds. They give me 350 words -- might you have guessed that I can go on at greater length? --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2129,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2129\/writing-for-money-im-in-real-estate-writing-for-money-is-a-big-part-of-what-i-do-to-earn-my-living\/","url_meta":{"origin":3382,"position":5},"title":"Writing for money? I’m in real estate. Writing for money is a big part of what I do to earn my living . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.\" --\u00a0Samuel\u00a0JohnsonKris Berg asked me last night about my experiences writing for money. This was something I was interested in when I was very young, but, again from Johnson, \"The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}