That we take our work personally is an understatement.
Writing is hard work, but writing for someone, as someone, and for someone they want to reach out to even more so.
While writing in itself may not be under-appreciated, we place a premium on feedback. We value feedback at every stage of a project, and here we take our work very personally.
But what happens when clients go dark?
No communication, no feedback, no...nothing!
It’s easy to make assumptions about what client is thinking about you. Are we looking in the wrong direction? Did we not understand the problem to be solved? All we can do is wonder what went wrong with our understanding of what was required.
Prolonged radio silence is deafening. We can improve if pointed out where and what and how. We can’t if we aren’t told. None of us can.
After incessant squawking on the communication channel, the client emerges from hibernation. Not with feedback, but a decisive conclusion that our writing was nothing close to what was expected.
We can wear their masks, but not their skin.
Our writing suddenly unusable, and the project withdrawn.
This is feedback too. Yet, the worst sort of feedback is no feedback at all.
That means we've created nothing.
Originally published November 27, 2019. No feedback.