Day In The Life Of A Freelance Copywriter — Monday, January 10, 2022

5am. The Hatch Restore begins lighting my room like a gorgeous Portland Lighthouse sunrise. (Or, at least, that’s what the Hatch app calls it.)

5:20am. The soft beep-beep, beep-beep wakes me up, and I feel a little bit less ridiculous for having paid $140 for an alarm clock when I’m reminded how jarring the act of waking up used to be, back in the olden days (last week) when I used my aggressive iPhone alarm.

5:25am. I sleepily walk to the fridge, pull out a Celsius, and pour it into a Crate & Barrel glass that is definitely meant for gin. I take three steps to the couch, and flop on it lazily with my stack of journals:

• Purple Moleskine, for writing down my ‘front porch moments’ (the best moments of my week—the ones that made me smile, and feel present, like sitting on a sunny front porch with no responsibilities). I usually do this on Sundays mornings, but forgot. Oops.
• Five Minute Journal, for gratitude practices.
• Decomposition Book, for Morning Pages—a daily A.M. journaling practice meant to clear your brain and improve your focus. The gag, as my friend Kleist would say, is that you have to do this pretty much as soon as you wake up, and stream-of-consciousness your way through 3 pages before you can consider yourself ‘done.’

6:17am. Wesley unexpectedly wakes up early, but I’m happy about it. I wanted to get out the door by 7:15—which I’d previously thought was a pipe dream—so I find myself getting excited when I hear the “mooommmyyy?!” call, in a situation where, on another day, I might have rolled my eyes, annoyed that my precious morning routine was being cut short.

6:18am. Baby couch cuddles.

6:23am. I turn on Blippi, and immediately regret my decision when I realize this now means I’ll have to turn off Blippi, and deal with the inevitable toddler wrath. I decide to worry about that later and make myself breakfast #1: overnight oats with peanut butter and blueberries.

7:01am. Wrath.

7:09am. Decide to ignore wrath, film TikTok outfit-of-the-day video.

7:16am. Wrangle Wesley into the car, and start singing nursery rhymes. Wrath over.

8:10am. I’m back home, and I’m starting to feel anxious about whether or not I’ll finish the project I have to send today. I’m embarrassed about how long it’s taking me, but I remind myself that Wesley’s daycare and their seemingly endless COVID-exposure-closures aren’t my fault. I feel guilty anyway.

8:18am. Decide that my work day will *officially begin* at 9am. I use this newfound 42 minutes of free time for what I call “biz brain development” to get me in the zone.

• I read a few pages of The Copywriter’s Handbook.
• I scroll through the Please Advise daily email, and the corresponding blog post.
• I jot down some notes about About pages.
• I voice-record some ideas for my weekly newsletter.
• I consult Bestie Ann‘s advice inside of Everybody Writes.

 

And now that I’ve reminded myself that I do, in fact, remember how to be a copywriter, I feel ready to work.

9am. Pinch myself when I walk into my office, in slight disbelief that I have one (and that I no longer work in what I used to fondly refer to as my garoffice—here’s the tour from early 2021, back when we lived in Canada).

9:01am. Log onto my computer, and pull up today’s project: website copy for Celeste Moore, a dating and image consultant for men looking for love in mid-life. I’ve already completed her Brand Messaging Book, so I pull that up, click ’tile window to left of screen’ and work with the two docs side by side.

10:02am. Get to a crossroads in my copy drafting: I can’t decide between two sentence options, and can’t decide if they’d sound better on Services, or on About.

10:03am. Call Abby to ask for help. She doesn’t answer.

10:04am. Breakfast #2: chocolate chip banana bread with cream cheese. And a video about a cabinet video.

10:07am. Go back to my draft, ignoring my roadblock from before, and work on Home instead.

11ish. Abby returns my call, and we have the most productive, inspiring, helpful FaceTime in the history of all “SOS I need help” cold call FaceTimes. We channel the minds of middle-aged single men and find a way to use “boardroom” and “bedroom” in the same sentence.

11:50am. Send Abby a chaotic thank-you text, then write down 4 ideas for my weekly newsletter that popped into my brain during our conversation.

• One about the Laneige lip mask and the power of understanding what your audience wants.
• One about work schedules, workshopping, and long-distance Internet friends.
• One about copyediting, and words earning their keep.
• One about active vs. passive voice, Google, and Top Gun.

 

At least one of these ideas will likely see the light of day—aka your inbox—this month or next.

11:51am. Go back to my draft, feeling great about my progress.

12:34pm. Remember Ann Handley’s advice to leave your draft when you’re feeling good about it, not when you’re stuck, so you’ll be excited to get back to it. I decide now is the perfect time to make this recipe for lunch.

12:39pm. Realize I don’t have the right ingredients for that recipe, so I make a random bowl of roasted tomatoes, sweet potato, brussel sprouts, diced onion, chicken, and balsamic glaze. I give it a 3/10 cuz the brussel sprouts were soft and weird.

12:44pm. FaceTime my long-distance best friend, Jayme, and we laugh and talk about ridiculously mundane things that don’t feel ridiculously mundane to us, like weekly grocery plans, and the lack of nutrition in Alani Nu, and brain fog. I miss that chick.

1:02pm. Go back to my draft, determined to finish it by 3pm. (Spoiler alert: I don’t.)

1:51pm. Call Abby again. She validates that my “mini About” (a necessary section on every Home page) for Celeste is worthy.

“The one thing missing from your dating game? A woman’s perspective. Hi, I’m Celeste Moore—and I know a thing or two about what makes a man desirable. As a Dating and Image Consultant with 14+ years of experience helping men improve their appearance, relationships, and confidence, I’m what you could call a professional wing-woman.”

Picture that first sentence headline-size. Picture the sentence starting with ‘Hi, I’m…’ slightly smaller, bolded. Picture the rest as a paragraph underneath. All of it is formatted to the right of a badass picture of her.

I love it. And I think her target audience will, too. (And hopefully she does, or this is awkward.)

2:19pm. Decide something is missing, and determine it’s the male perspective. I don’t know any single, middle-aged men (or at least not any I’m willing to cold FaceTime), so I settle for my college friend, Tommy. He’s 28 (I think) and I decide that’s old enough. Luckily he’s not busy, and he gives me some insight.

2:26pm. Write.

3:04pm. I’m not done, but I quit before my brain can quit on me.

3:13pm. Go to the grocery store. I realize this is apparently a busy time for said grocery store, and slightly regret my decision. I get over it.

3:42pm. Eat one of the mini donuts I bought for Wesley in the car.

4:24pm. Force myself to go to the gym at my apartment complex for the first time, because I’ll be damned if I pay for an amenity and not use it. I tell myself I’m going to do Lauren Giraldo’s 12-3-30, then realize I don’t have time to do the full 30. I do 20 instead.

5pm. My cousin and her daughter, Emma, arrive with Wesley. They pick him up from daycare on Mondays, thank God—that one favor saves me so much time, and mental energy, and I love her for it.

5:16pm. The kids play like they’ve just been given 862 grams of sugar, and scream like their lives depend on it. We laugh.

5:33pm. Make dinner: Trader Joe’s vegetable and soba noodle stir fry.

6:04pm. We decide that wasn’t enough, and eat buffalo chicken dip with Tostito’s. The kids watch Crazy Frog music videos and some weird crayon show on YouTube.

7pm. It’s bath time. Wesley’s not having it, which is unusual. I decide that he gets to win this battle. We put on PJs, watch Blippi, and play cars.

8:30pm. Wesley goes to bed late. I, again, decide that he gets to win this battle.

8:49pm. Go back to Celeste’s draft, add the finishing touches, and make lots of comments to her.

9:31pm. Record my Loom video that I send with every first draft (gotta give the necessary context and that fun little walkthrough!) and send off the project for her review.

9:40pm. The sound of my laptop shutting is the most satisfying thing I’ve heard all day.

9:59pm. Remember I’d been filming clips of my day since 6am to post on TikTok for what was supposed to be a “no-spend day in my life” video. I’m too tired to talk, so I let the app ‘sound sync’ the clips to some random song and posted it.

10:06pm. Realize I should’ve done the voiceover, because it would have performed better. Anyone can record clips and throw a sound on it. I feel annoyed about my lack of originality, then decide I don’t actually care right now. I’ll care about a different video tomorrow instead.

10:17pm. Tap the top of my Hatch to activate my bedtime routine, and feel very futuristic. The peaceful red light turns on as I swipe through my Superhuman app and choose a manifestation meditation for sleep. I rest my head on my bizarre-yet-effective Pillow Cube.

10:21pm. I don’t hear a damn word the meditation chick is saying.

10:22pm. ZZZzzzzzzzz.

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If we haven’t had the chance to *virtually* meet yet, hi! I’m Sara Noel—website copywriter and marketing mentor for creatives, copywriters, and all-around cool people. If you like my content and you want even more BTL in your life, here are a few ways you can connect with me:

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