National Writing Day
National Writing Day, 19 June 2024, is an annual event dedicated to celebrating and practising the art of creative writing.
At Editing Edge, we obviously love writing! As expert copywriters we help our clients perfectly hone their messages, tell their story and engage with their audience.
We had a chat with Editing Edge’s Lesley Hussell to find out more.
Hi Lesley. Please tell us, what got you into writing and when did you start?
I attempted my first “novel” when I was at primary school. It was about 30 pages long and nothing ever came of it, though I flicked through it again recently and it wasn’t that bad (for a nine year old)! But most of what I know about writing comes from my career as a journalist.
Why do you enjoy writing?
I love writing and I love editing, taking a clunky piece of prose and turning it into something dynamic and purposeful. But above all what I do is about storytelling.
What are your most memorable moments in your career?
As a journalist I covered Princess Diana’s death, an airline hijack and the love life of French presidents. The same skills of getting to the heart of the matter, telling the story powerfully and accurately, and delivering to a deadline are what my clients in the business world value so highly today.
What different types of writing do you offer your clients?
At Editing Edge, our job is to bring strategic copywriting to our clients. It’s about defining from the outset what we want to achieve together and taking a strategic path to get there. The starting point for any piece of writing (website, white paper, speech or annual report) has got to be: what do you want the audience to do when they’ve read it? So, what do we need to write to convince them to take that action…and where is the unbeatable evidence we can include?
A few examples of clients and projects we’ve been working on recently shows the breadth of the subjects we cover:
Website words – the St Magnus Community needed an array of content for its new mental health website, using upbeat, engaging, succinct messaging.
Award applications – we worked with M2M Pharmaceuticals to create a well-structured and powerful entry which showcased the company at its very best.
Report writing – a comprehensive collaboration with Satellite Applications Catapult resulted in a coherent, compelling annual report.
Editing books – we helped inspiring entrepreneur Dr James Espey OBE create a sparkling manuscript for his fabulous book 365 Quotes to Accelerate Your Career and Find Balance in Life.
Why is writing important for your clients?
Finding the most impactful messaging to tell our clients’ stories is key to engaging with their audience, connecting with them and gaining their trust. No matter what the aim of our clients – to improve brand awareness, increase sales or drive traffic to their website, celebrate success through award applications or motivate staff – strategic copywriting is the foundation.
What are your top tips for inspiring others to get into writing?
If you love to tell a story, if you have the ability to put your finger on the most important point, if you can write fluently and engagingly, if you’ve got the nuts and bolts of grammar sorted, and if you can present it all in a way that gets your readers saying: “Wow! That’s interesting…” then writing is the best job in the world.
