Two kinds of writing

I am doing a lot of freelance editing these days, and many of my clients find me through a freelancing site called oDesk. I have worked with a bunch of freelance sites over the past decade or so, but am finding oDesk to be ahead of the pack in several ways: the jobs offered seem to match my skills pretty well, the contracting and payment processes are straightforward and--so far--I have not had a tiff with a client.

They let you add a link to a video in your profile, so I thought I would create one. I am not delighted with the technical quality, but the light glinting off my glasses at least partly conceals when I am reading my notes rather than looking into the camera.

The video is below. The burden of what I had to say is this:

Here's a thing I've learned about writing: it comes in two broad categories.

The smaller category is writing that calls attention to itself: if you're a playwright, a speechwriter, or maybe a marketing person, you sometimes want text that is tangy as lemons off the tree, words as rich as chocolate, phrases the reader wants to read again just for the delight of it.

This writing is a lot of fun to put together, but unless you do it right it can get a little tiresome. Think of a meal of nothing but chocolate...

And the larger category is writing that's a vehicle for the important information you want to deliver. You have a point to make, a process to explain, a product to describe. For this you want writing so clear and efficient that the reader hardly even notices it.

I'm good at both kinds of writing, either editing and improving what you'd already got, or creating new material to do what you need.

And, of course, I'm very good at the essentials that both kinds of writing require: correct grammar, no punctuation or spelling mistakes, the right word in the right place in the sentence.

Let me know about your writing project. I can help make it clearer, more effective, and more worthy of what you want to tell people.

My profile on oDesk is here. Drop by if you need some writing or editing help.