Winding up, winding down

By Thursday this week, I should be all but finished for Christmas. It has been a very hectic last fortnight with lots of research, interviewing and writing, but everyone wants their work signed-off by the end of this week - and for me, that means at least 24 hours before.

I realise that I thrive on pressure. Give me a deadline and I'll meet it - but I'll probably need the pressure to perform to really deliver my best. And over the last couple of weeks I think I've written some pretty good stuff: certainly the client feedback has been good. I've just culled a few quotes from emails I've had in the last week or so to stick in my 'feel good' file.

The quotes have included:

Very impressive!.....from a lawyer

Excellent - very readable. Well done Mark......from an HR Director; and

Good Job!.......from a CSR guru.

I tend to keep those pieces and the comments that go with them in an online file and refer back to them when I'm struggling to string words together. Sometimes pieces I've already written and liked can spur a new chain of thought and help me find a way to tackle a more tricky issue - or find something new to say about a subject that's inherently dull. Of course, I won't always be able to - and one of the downsides of business to business writing is that some pieces always end up sounding a little mechanical - especially if they've been reviewed, chewed over by committee and sanitised within an inch of incomprehension.

But virtually all the pieces I've written in December have been signed off very close to the initial draft. It has helped greatly to have some really interesting interviewees and some meaty subject matter across a number of clients. And weirdly, it has helped to be writing a 4,500 word essay in parallel. There's an academic rigour involved in that which has probably seeped into my business writing, making it just a tad more disciplined this time round.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I've enjoyed the challenge of this latest round of writing.....although I'm also looking forward to a rest next week.