the write words
6,500 phrases, puns, idioms and expressions
to help you write your headlines and copy faster
lizette resendez
Copyright 2019 by Lizette Resendez
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781703750584
Imprint: Independently published
DEDICATION
For my parents, Arnoldo and Janie Resendez, who filled every home
we ever had with books, filled my summer weekends
with trips to the library, and filled me with the confidence
that I could do anything I put my mind to .
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my husband, Bret Hirsch my biggest champion for the last 17 years. No matter what crazy idea I get in my brain, youre 100% behind it. Thank you for tolerating the nights when I had to work on this and left you on the couch to watch Marvel movies on your own (although you probably didnt mind that at all, huh?) And thank you for grabbing our crying son from his bed in the middle of the night to bring him into ours when I was locked in the guestroom working on this. I love you.
To my son Elliott Hirsch, my one and only, who tolerated my typing on my laptop in the middle of countless Houston Astros baseball games and Texas A&M football games. You certainly already have a way with words at just four years old, and I hope you grow up to love writing and reading as much as your parents.
To Katherine Jankovic. I so appreciate your enthusiasm, collaboration and designer eyes on this book. You made the process of brainstorming, collaborating and designing a modern and fresh book cover effortless and fun. I cant wait for our next project together.
To Chad White, for your guidance and encouragement when I first pitched this book idea to you back in December 2018. I could not have done this without the insights you gathered and shared from publishing your own book, Email Marketing Rules . Your advice made the process so much easier. Good luck on your next one!
And to Sarah Ostiz. Im so glad I stumbled across your profile on my frantic search for a Microsoft Word formatting expert. I could not have taken these pages to the finish line without your mad formatting skills, and Im so grateful to you.
INTRODUCTION
True story: I didnt know what a copywriter was when I applied for my first copywriting job at Williams-Sonoma in 2005. That is, until someone reminded me that the Seinfeld character, Elaine Benes, was a copywriter for the J. Peterman catalog. All I knew, thanks to the job posting, was that the job required lots of writing. And being a recent graduate with a journalism degree and internships at magazines and newspapers under my belt, I knew I could write. So I went to the interview, smiled a lot, pretended I knew exactly what a copywriter did, shared some work samples, passed the copywriting test, and what do you know, I got the job!
My new job would entail writing both descriptive and marketing copy for Pottery Barn Kids and Teen furniture, bedding and accessories across their monthly catalogs, websites and email campaigns.
It was so much fun (and just cool) until I realized after a few weeks that I had to write about the same things over and over and over again. Striped bedding, floral bedding, checkered bedding, Bunk beds, queen beds, trundle beds, floral curtains, floral rugs, floral backpacks, summertime shindigs, back to school study spaces, and holiday gatherings.
There was so much to write, and so little time to come up with something fresh for every asset I was writing for. I was writing and editing copy across catalogs, web, email marketing campaigns, social media and in-store signage. I needed a way to keep track of every idea I had good and bad for every item Id had to write for, so that if I needed those good or bad ideas in the future, Id have a nice little repository ready to pull from.
Need a headline about the new floral bedding for page 2 of the summer catalog? You got it.
Need a punny subject line for that email marketing campaign that goes out tomorrow morning promoting our holiday collections? Done!
No time? No coffee? No problem!
So how was I doing it all?
Well, I had been keeping a stack of at least 15 5x7 lined pages from a spiral notebook at my desk at all times with all of my brainstorm words, phrases and ideas for every topic Id ever had to write about. It was the only way to keep track of those good (and yes, many bad) ideas so that I could pull from them in a pinch.
And pull from them, I did.
Before I knew it, those lined pieces of paper, which Id had to re-staple every few months when the corners of the pages became so worn that the staple simply fell out, were becoming so soft, almost see-through, that they were starting to fall apart. And Id only been at the company for a little over a year!
Worried that the janitor might see this sad, faded stack of hastily stapled papers and think it was trash (Im telling you, the papers were looking rough ), I decided it was time to transfer those ideas to the 21st century and into my computer.
So I opened a fresh Microsoft Word document on my computer and started transferring my ideas. I created one Word document per topic. Before I knew it, I had at least 30 different files covering topics like holidays, sports, prints and colors.
And while I left my job at Williams-Sonoma in 2011, I took all of those Word docs Id built to every job after and kept on adding to them as I moved from one company, industry and product to another.
My copywriting skills have since taken me from San Francisco to New York and back home to Texas. Ive written for just about every medium available: newspapers, magazines, websites, email marketing campaigns, catalogs, social media, in-store signage, RFPs, pitch decks and more. And like any seasoned copywriter, Ive had to learn and write about a variety of topics and industries, including fashion, software, travel, toys, financial services, automotive, insurance and even cloud technology.
Those Microsoft Word docs have swelled to over 130 topics and subcategories. (I wish I could say I still have that original stack of 5x7 pages, but they were just not tough enough to survive my Marie Kondo-inspired purge of 2016.)
Now, 15 years after that first copywriting job at Williams-Sonoma, I figured it was time to make it official and transfer these ideas and Microsoft Word docs to another format an actual book.
I hope this book will help those fellow and future copywriters during their writers block moments when they just dont know what else to say about that darn polka dot rug theyve had to write about for three seasons in a row. Or that new small business owner come up with fun copy for their own website or promotions. Or that blogger who thinks the headline for his or her next blog post could and should be a little punchier.
My hope is that this book becomes as well worn, dog-eared and soft as that stack of 5x7 lined pages I had at my desk as a 20-something copywriter who was just learning what it was that a copywriter actually does. Enjoy!
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
This is not the type of book I ever thought Id write. You know, the next Great American Novel. A book where you start at the beginning and end at the end although you can totally do that with this one if you feel so inclined. With this book, you can just flip through to see if anything inspires you, or check out the table of contents to get an idea of the types of topics Ive included here.
Need to write something right now? See if the topic or category youre writing about is in here and flip to that page. Scroll through some of the words and phrases I have for that topic or category and see if any of them fits or gets your wheels turning.
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