2005 - 07-27-05

When I wrote that little essay, I'm not sure
exactly why I did it. I think mostly I wrote it because so many
people were always commenting about "The Gary Halbert Style"
of writing. I think all good writers do develop a "style" of
their own. But I think what I wanted to prove was, a really
good writer could write in almost any kind of style and from
almost any kind of "voice".

What most of you perceive as my "style" is
what you read in my newsletters. But it's my conceit I could
write a romance novel for women, an action novel for men, a
"legalese" contract, an ad for the Surgery Eye Centers of
Tennessee, and a Valentine for Jessica... and... none of the
people who read each of those would ever guess they were
written by the same person.

When it comes to writing... especially ad
copy... the best writing of all is...

Invisible!

When
you are selling something, you don't want people to notice
your style. That's why I don't very often use graphics.
That's why I am (for the most part) against graphic
designers, website designers, photographs in advertising,
and so forth. What I want is people to read the sales
message... and... not get distracted by graphics, style,
photographs, music, or anything else.

Bob Dylan was interviewed on the TV show,
"60 Minutes" recently. He recited the lyrics from some of
his earlier songs. He then commented something to the
effect,

"Where did that come from? The lyrics were
absolutely magical. There was almost a cosmic aspect to
them."
He also commented he couldn't write like
that now since he was unable to access and tap into whatever
source it was that enabled him to write those lyrics.

Something akin to that happened while I was
writing "A Valentine For Jessica". I have read it and reread
it, and I honestly don't know if I could ever write like
that again. It seems to me (and I'll prove it very
dramatically a little later in this newsletter) it was an
extremely important piece of writing. Until recently, I
didn't know why it was important and for whom
it was important.