Black Copy

I’ve given the old website a bit of a re-vamp recently. It certainly needed it, it was looking untidy and hadn’t had anything done to it since I first threw it up here about a year ago. I suppose there have been little changes here and there but unfortunately I never seem to find the time to give my own website the attention it deserves, I’m too busy writing stuff for other people!

I’m considering a total re-envisioning of the whole Black Copy concept. It’s just not really me at the moment, which I think is important. I should be expressing myself, after all, writing is about creativity. Without the time (or the web savvy skill) to make my website the thing it should have been, it has become a rather stale impersonation of a ‘copywriter’s website’.

I’m going to consult a man with some decidedly different ideas about design, in order to make something that I can be proud to say is mine. I should also really think about alternative ways to heat my workplace. Wearing a dressing gown over my clothes is a little bit too Arthur Dent for most people. I would have said Hugh Hefner but on reflection I’m far from being that cool, despite the cold!

Another busy day is drawing to a close. A busy one at that! I’ve been writing about the 2012 doomsday phenomenon, which involves a range of theories about the world coming to an end somewhere around 21 December 2012. There are a huge number of websites and blogs talking about this now, which is probably not surprising given that we are only about 3 years away from it. But this is great news for Roland Emmerich and Centropolis Film Productions, the company he co-founded with his sister, and which now makes megabucks from Hollywood action flicks like The Day After Tomorrow and his latest effort 2012.

It’s amazing what you learn as a copywriter. I’ve read some interesting and sometimes bizarre stuff about the end of the world, especially the theories about the mysterious Planet X, or Nibiru as its known. The woman that has spread the word about this Earth threatening planet has apparently received her information via an impact in her brain from Aliens in a distant star system. Remarkable. Not that any of it worries me of course, as there have been plenty of doomsday predictions in the past, especially around the millennium (remember that!?) and clearly none have them have been remotely true!

But now I’ve got other projects to work on,  and other things to think about, so the whys and wherefores of the end of the world will have to make way for other things. The copywriter’s brain must be like a sponge, soak it up one day, squeeze it out the next

There seems to be more and more reasons that I find myself online these days. If I’m not writing something in a professional capacity then there are all sorts of social writing opportunities keeping me busy. Facebook keeps me in touch with friends and relatives, while Twitter is a chance to let the world know that I’m having a cuppa, in no more than 140 characters.

With blogging and social forums, Yahoo Answers, Myspace and social bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious, it’s a wonder I ever interact on a face to face basis at all. Thankfully, squeezing in a healthy social life between sleep, work and eating helps to keep me sane and prevents me from viewing the world as a series of descending zeros and ones like something from The Matrix. But should I worry about this level of interaction via the Web? I don’t think it’s affecting my eyes just yet, but I’m sure my fingers are going to be arthritic by the time I’m 40.

It’s a good thing I enjoy writing, or I might have found myself going goggle eyed and stir crazy with my level of Internet use. My secret is to go off on a little tangent occasionally and get lost in Wikipedia for half an hour. Somehow I can start off reading about the French Revolution and end up on a biog of Aleksandr the meerkat from the TV ads. I don’t know how that happens but I love the fact that it does. I’m not sure whether the Urban Dictionary has a word for this phenomenon yet but I’m going to think of one. Wiki… errr

A weekend of fantastic weather and overindulgence has resulted in very little writing getting done here at Black Copy or anywhere else. Who wants to be indoors when the Sun is shining, the barbecues are burning and friends are gathering for drinks.

I did make one attempt at writing this weekend, and that was to try and list the things I’d had to eat and drink at a meal with friends. We were trying to split the bill as fairly as possible in these cold economic times, so those that had frugally shared a vegetable balti weren’t forking out for the 2 lamb bhunas, 6 chapatis and 8 pints of Cobra that others were devouring.

However, when it came to using a pen I found my hand to eye coordination somewhat lacking. It was like trying to thread a needle. I was useless. Surely using a laptop everyday hasn’t diminished my ability to write that much! Maybe it has. Or maybe it was those Cobras. Either way, I think I need to get back in practice before I forget how to write altogether. Where did I put that crossword book?

This is the inaugural post of the Black Copy Blog. Here I will be expressing my thoughts and opinions about whatever happens to capture my interest, particularly things related to the business of online writing and blogging.

There is a lot to be said for blogging. Although still in its infancy relatively speaking, already there is a whole industry built around it, and people spend an inordinate amount of time engaging with their audience of blog followers. What do they call people that read blogs anyway? Bloggees perhaps?

Blogging is probably the Internet’s most honest form of expression, despite its commercialisation in recent years. Most of the blogs out there are genuine attempts by ordinary people to connect with other ordinary people about the subjects that interest them. It is the arm around the shoulder of people that use the Internet for a purpose beyond looking at naked ladies or flogging their old junk.

Many pearls of wisdom are shared everyday by bloggers all over the world, and so I venture forth to join the collective mind with this, the Black Copy Blog. God bless her and all who take interest in her.