About Michele PW
I’ve been a writer all of my life. At 3 years old, I taught myself to read because I wanted to write stories so much. In high school, I wrote my first novel (which isn’t fit for human eyes) and won a national award for a humorous short story called “Appointment with Death.” That one I might pull out and republish one of these days. But I digress.
My freshman year in college at University of Wisconsin-Madison (go Badgers!) I took a creative writing course. My professor gave me a “C” for a grade (one of only two Cs I received during my entire college career). I couldn’t figure out why she had given me a “C” so I went and asked her. After all, I had done all the work and attended all the classes. She told me it was because I didn’t have any talent as a writer.
Of course I was upset, but I told myself I wasn’t going to let it bother me. A year later, I decided to try again and take a different creative writing course. In order to get into the class, I had to include a sample of my work and fill out a form and tell them about the first creative writing class and the “C” I got.
I found out later the professors judging my work didn’t even want to read my samples because they decided if that first professor has given me a “C,” I must not have any talent. I found this out from the head of the creative writing department, who told them to read my work, but of course I didn’t get into a class.
Again, I was devastated and, again, I kept saying it didn’t bother me. The more I kept saying it didn’t bother me, the less I was able to write. Eventually I couldn’t write a word a fiction.
Although I was no longer writing any fiction, that didn’t stop me from telling people I was going to be a famous novelist. But of course I needed something to do to make money until my first novel got published (or, to be honest, just written in the first place). So I kept getting pushed toward journalism. Not that I wasn’t encouraged to pursue my fiction writing career, but unfortunately you still need to eat and pay for heat (this was in Madison, Wisconsin, remember) during that year or two or ten it takes to write a novel that people will actually pay money to read (this is especially true when you aren’t actually doing any writing).
Since I quickly realized I didn’t particularly want to freeze while living on bread and water (or water and water) I looked around for another way to make money. Preferably without being a journalist. And that’s when I discovered copywriting.
It was after college – I had completed a double major in English Literature (NOT creative writing) and Communications and nearly finished a master’s degree in Agricultural Journalism also at UW-Madison. While in school, since writing was no longer an option, I was pursuing a career as a video producer, working in video departments and on production crew at WHA Channel 21 – the Public Television Station in Madison. (I even ran game camera for a Badger football season – too bad this was pre-Barry Alveraz and the Badgers were pretty much the joke of the Big Ten.) I started writing video scripts, then found myself writing advertising scripts, and the next thing I knew I was writing all sorts of promotional copy.
It was through copywriting that I found my way back to fiction. Copywriting allowed me to fuse my creativity with my writing ability without all the angst of creating my own stories. In fact, the process I used as a copywriter was similar to the process I used to write fiction (and no, I don’t mean making things up). Eventually, I found myself able to write fiction again.
In the meantime, I continued to hone my copywriting skills by taking jobs in the marketing/communications departments of corporations and agencies. In 1996, my husband and I and our first border collie, Amber, moved to Prescott, Arizona, because my husband had a business opportunity there. Unfortunately, the business opportunity didn’t pan out, but we ended up staying anyway. (Trust me, get away from the icy cold winters and sticky hot summers complete with about a billion mosquitoes and you’d think twice about going back as well. And no, this is NOT Phoenix, summer temperatures average in the low 90s.)
I worked for about 18 months in the communications department at the City of Prescott before launching Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC in 1998.
Going into business for myself was the best thing I ever did. I’ve discovered a passion for combining my creativity with my writing ability to help solve marketing problems for my clients.
However, that passion nearly destroyed me. For years I would take on any copywriting or marketing job that came my way. While this gave me a truly fabulous foundation in marketing and copywriting, the grueling hours I put in, along with the exhausting feast-and-famine model I used to market my business, eventually took their toll.
In 2002, I burned out.
I couldn’t work, I couldn’t write. I sunk into this gloomy, murky pit so dark and so deep I didn’t even think it was possible to find my way out. During my blackest moment, I spent a week in front of the television, lap top computer on my lap so I could SAY I was working, watching Pride and Prejudice over and over. (The six-hour A&E version, I watched it three times in a row.)
This time, it was my fiction that saved my copywriting career.
While I couldn’t write copy, I could write fiction. I wrote my second novel, The Stolen Twin, in 6 months (that one, if I do say so myself, is a pretty darn good novel).
My fiction became my light in the pit. At first it was as flickering and unsteady as a single candle struggling to stay lit while air currents threatened to put it out. It grew steadily stronger until it was as powerful and as a bright as a beam from a lighthouse, lighting my way as I groped through the twisty, turning passages, finally emerging back into the sunlight.
In the fall of 2002, I was back at work, my passion for helping small business owners and entrepreneurs with their marketing and copywriting back at full throttle. But I was leery. I didn’t want to repeat the same pattern and end up in front of the television set, watching Pride and Prejudice again. So I knew I had to do something different, I just wasn’t sure yet what that would look like.
It took a little over a year, and a lot of trial and error, but I finally figured it out. I started marketing myself more effectively (finally took my own advice) hired a business coach, began systemizing my business, and decided to specialize, specifically in direct response copywriting. (I chose to specialize in direct response, which means the promotional piece sells directly to the customer, because I knew my clients getting better results if I did.)
And in 2004, it all started to pay off. My business began to take off.
My articles about marketing, creativity and copywriting are spreading rapidly over both the Internet and print publications. I am now speaking to various organizations and seminars throughout the country. And I started working with well-known names including Melanie Benson Strick (Success Connections), international sales trainer Eric Lofholm, Kelly O'Neil (UpLevel Strategies), Beth Schneider (Process Prodigy) and my mentor Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero (Red Hot Copy).
Currently I’ve completed two novels (both fit to read I’m happy to say) and a marketing/creativity ebook called “Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money.” And I'm still residing in the mountains of Prescott with my husband and three border collies, Nick, Maddie and Roxie.
I also write fiction. Learn more here.
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