Day jobs, copywriting, editing & more

Erika Dreifus had a great post yesterday about five things to appreciate about being a writer with a day job. In the last five years, she's managed to work 9 to 5, maintain a fantastic blog, and publish a collection of short stories. She is inspiration to all of us who want to work and write.

Speaking of working and writing, sometimes if you're lucky like Writer Abroad, you can combine the two. On Sunday night, the advertising copywriters of the world (well, of the U.S.) had their evening of glory. One of the best written spots was for Chrysler, although I thought the Chrysler spot from last year was an even better example of writing well for advertising. So too, the spot last year from Google.

Speaking of writing for advertising, SWISS recently unveiled their new campaign and Writer Abroad had the honor of working on it. The ad pictured in this post is one of the print ads.

In other news, the spring Zurich Writers Workshop is already half full, so if you're interested in attending, Writer Abroad recommends registering soon. Zurich has been a home to James Joyce, Goethe, and more and is a great literary city to spend a weekend in.

Finally, Writer Abroad heard that it was good to cut out filter words when editing a novel or memoir so Writer Abroad decided she would do it as she continues to edit her 350-page memoir. It felt like a lot of work but seemed like a fairly easy thing to accomplish in small chunks with a baby around. Anyhow, thanks to a helpful blog post from Write it Sideways, Writer Abroad had a list of words to go through and now her book is four pages shorter.