ELLEN MCRAE | WRITER (IN NAME ONLY)
Hey, I’m Ellen, and this is my (hopefully not-so-cliche) bio.
Ellen ‘Jelly’ McRae
Born in the late 80’s. Aussie girl. Married to the most amazing man. Collects Garfield books and handbags. Wrestling addict. Full-time freelance writer.
I don’t like the writer stereotype.
If we aren’t obsessing over literature and the dictionary, we’re wearing glasses. Drinking our eighteenth coffee for the day, and flexing our arrogance in written prose.
And yes, we use the word ‘prose’ far too often.
Even when I decided to write something about myself, put together a few poignant so I wasn’t just an avatar on the screen, I didn’t want to write anything cliché. Here’s my bio, look at…
RELATIONSHIP COLUMN
Let’s rephrase those six little words.
“Do you want to get married?”
We ask this question at many different stages of our life.
For me, I can’t count how many times an individual has asked. Too many times, and at too many points of my life.
I remember my grandmother giving me a wedding dress as a young girl. With a veil to match. As I twirled around in my newly gifted ensemble, I remember family members asking me the question.
And then there was my first boyfriend. When one of my school friends asked me about marriage, even though I was fifteen, I didn’t consider…
WRITER’S LESSONS
And why Carrie Bradshaw’s faux process has nothing on what it takes to write.
I used to watch Carrie typing away at her nineties Macbook and wonder how long it took her to scribe her weekly column.
Did she work on it all day, everyday?
Was it all on the day it was due?
Though we never got to understand how many words one of her columns were, in terms of word count, it seemed like writing was pretty easy for her.
The more I’ve watched the show, the more I appreciate where the ease to write comes from. The more I have taken to the keyboard, the easier it gets for me. I’ve…
You’ve got the whole reading advice completely wrong.
How many times has a writer told you being a reader is key to becoming successful?
It’s dead advice, we’ve all heard it and understand the reasoning. It’s quickly becoming the most overused piece of guidance peddled to aspiring wordsmiths. And despite this, despite how sick we are of hearing it, I’m adding my voice to this.
Read, writers, read.
Forget the novel sitting on your nightstand.
Or the latest instalment of your favourite author waiting on your Kindle.
That’s not what this is about.
Forget cliche writing. The classics every writer must-read. Jane Austen. Oscar Wilde. Shakespeare. I love…
Imagine losing it all because of one platform.
I remember when Facebook was the only genuine social content platform out there.
The day I joined Facebook, it was like it wiped my MySpace password from my brain in seconds. There was no need to go anywhere else to promote what you’re doing.
And then there was the day my brother introduced me to YouTube, a video of a man called Justin doing a montage of different styles of dancing over the years. The video, The Evolution of Dance, received 70 million views in the short eight months it was on the platform. …
You’re probably doing one or all of these things, and getting nowhere.
For any entrepreneur without a marketing background, selling has to be the hardest part of the job.
Being a natural marketer is a rare and enviable talent, one I believe reserved for the gods. To possess a balance of creativity and strategic foresight is something I applaud. It’s part of my job as a writer that I’m constantly working on.
Marketing is my impossible task. Every time I tackle my marketing tasks, it makes writing look simple in comparison.
But what doesn’t help marketing as a writer is the stereotypes. …
MOTIVATION MINDSET
Stop putting all of your motivational eggs in one basket.
What’s a smart strategy for making money?
Multiple income streams.
You earn from your online store, from a Facebook store, from having your products stocked in major retailers.
What’s a smart strategy for marketing?
Multiple marketing streams.
Social media accounts, no exclusivity to one. Online advertisements. Influencer promotions. Billboards. Flyer drop.
With our propensity to spread our earning and marketing options wide, why not have more than one motivational stream?
I’m a multi-motivator. I embrace many forms of motivation all at once. You could say I’m averse to putting all my eggs in one basket. And motivation isn’t any different…
And no, don’t blame the people writing them.
In the middle of my Facebook feed is the classic clickbait article.
It’s about the next skincare revolution, some two hundred comments.
It’s a standard day on social media.
The post was about this “new” type of skin peel. What got the crowd going was the use of “innovation” in the title.
There’s nothing new about skin peels.
Skin peels have been around for (insert probably incorrect number here) years.
How are skin peels a new thing?
The comments went on like this. It wasn’t until one person pointed out the elephant on the feed. …
Give your customers want they want. And that isn’t your creativeness.
My journey to becoming a paid writer started with me, my computer and my ideas.
Very basic, nothing fancy, a blank page on Word, and away I went. I didn’t think about freelancing, having customers pay me to write for them. I didn’t even care about the next thing I wanted to write. It was all about the moment and letting the creativity flow onto the page. Wonderfully freeing and completely liberating.
But writing for a customer isn’t like that.
The first writing customer I ever had sent me a list of instructions, what they wanted me to write, and…
RELATIONSHIP COLUMN
If only the answer were that simple.
When I started my first job at the local corner store, aged fifteen, my boss told me one thing about customer service.
“At all costs”, he said, “Don’t talk to the customers about politics or sport.” And after watching a heated debate unfold between my colleague and a customer about who played better the day before, the Australian cricket team or the England team, I agreed with him.
With so many differing opinions, so many people with their own contentious views, these topics easily lead to nasty commentary. And undignified responses.
It wasn’t until I got a little older I…
