Lord knows I don’t like to generalize (regardless of what my husband and son say), but in my years as a freelance writer – of speeches and other communications – I’ve come to believe there are basically two types of clients. The ones who want to work with you, and the ones who drop you like a hot potato if you don’t produce perfection right out of the gate.

Let me explain.

I’ve been working with a client at a global pharmaceutical company to write a brochure on the results of a cancer study it recently completed. The study involved responses from cancer patients, their caregivers, and the general public to questions related to their understanding of a wide variety of cancer topics. These included clinical trials, costs of medication, the value of an extra year of life, what worried them most about a cancer diagnosis, and more.

My first go-round on the brochure was factual but dry and lacking “life.” I had thought the client was just looking for a streamlined version of study results themselves. I was wrong. The client and I had a good, long conversation on the personal nature of the study they were looking to infuse into the brochure – personal stories, quotes, and even images some of the cancer patients had created to portray their cancer journeys.

The second draft of the brochure was totally different from the first. It told a “story,” included personal reflections and beautiful paintings, as well as the results to key questions in the survey itself. The client was delighted.

However, a second client – a leading US health insurance provider – had an entirely different response to my first draft of a set of slides on diversity and inclusion to be used in a presentation to new employees who had just been merged with the parent company.

I handed in a first draft on Monday morning. On Monday afternoon, I received a note saying she wasn’t sure this was what she was looking for and she would like to talk the next day. But as of today, Friday – which I was told was the deadline for getting the slides to the people who would use them – I have still not heard from her.

I think I’ll send her a bill on Monday.

Some clients want to work with a good freelancer, giving her the chance to better understand or “get” what the client is really looking for. Other clients take your first attempt, figure they gave you a chance and you’re hopeless, and never contact you again.

Have you had similar experiences?  I would love to hear about them.

The Academy of Oratory, run by Giles Abbott and Leon Conrad, offers a six-part radio series called “The Talking Shop,” at its online site.   

The six shows focus on “Stories and Storytelling,” “Stories and Learning,” “Stories and Healing,” “Stories and Leaving,” “Stories and Leading,” and “Stories and Formation.”

I have not listened to the series yet, so I’d be delighted with any feedback you’d like to provide.

This morning I posted a blog on how funny and enjoyable President Obama’s remarks were at last night’s White House Correspondents’ dinner.

But this afternoon I came across the keynote remarks he gave at Planned Parenthood’s annual convention on April 26, which wiped away all remnants of this morning’s laughter.

To those of us who support the “seamless garment” of life — from conception to natural death –that the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernadin described, it was a sad and dismaying speech indeed.

The President spoke glowingly of Planned Parenthood as a provider of health care to women in need, and of the importance of a “woman’s right to choose.” The word abortion never touched his lips and he never completed the thought — “a woman’s right to choose”…what? To eliminate a living, breathing, unborn human being, that’s what.

After listening to his remarks, I researched exactly how many abortions Planned Parenthood performs annually. I discovered this shocking statistic: In its 2011 annual report, Planned Parenthood states that it performed 333,964 abortions — a record for the organization that received 45 percent of its revenues from taxpayer-funded government sources — during the 2011-2012 fiscal year.  You read that right — almost 400,000 abortions in a single year. Last year, Planned Parenthood reported revenues exceeding $87 million and net assets of more than $1.2 billion.

That’s money from you and me and lots of other people who are being made, against our wills, to support an agency that cares so little for the sacredness of human life and willfully extinguishes it.

Our country was founded on the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet our very government has no qualms about lauding and supporting an organization that takes away the very first of those rights — the right to life — from so many innocents.

As a Catholic Christian, I have hope…hope the scourge of abortion will one day be no more. And I am encouraged by something Obama pointed out in his speech — something he saw as a negative, but I see as a positive. He lamented that 42 states — yes, 42 states — have introduced legislation to restrict or outlaw abortions. Amen.

A final note, it’s been interesting to me that Planned Parenthood has advertised for a speechwriter to its president for many months now. Perhaps it is also a sign of hope that they are having so much trouble filling a job that many seem loathe to take.

Last year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Obama began his remarks offstage from a “bathroom” and we even got to hear him flush the toilet before he came onstage. I blogged about how I liked it…not!

This year, I’m happy to say, the President was funny and clever, using hysterical videos to support his jokes, and ended his routine with heartfelt words about how the tragedies we’ve seen in recent days — the Boston bombing and the Texas refinery explosion — have brought out the best in many of us who have demonstrated love for our neighbors, our cities and our country in our actions and through our prayers.

From joking about his “socialist Muslim past” and beginning work on his Presidential library, to be located right next to the Bush Library and to be called The Blame Bush Library to his suggestion that $100,000 million spent by a Republican donor on the presidential race might have been better spent just given to Obama to drop out of the race. To which he added, “Michele would have taken it. I would have thought about it.”

Good stuff all around.

I invite you to enjoy the President giving his remarks at the dinner.

One of the “Top Ten Most Annoying Speaker Habits,” according to Eric J. Romero, PhD, in the April issue of Speaker magazine (the publication of the National Speakers Association), concerns “Stories, Stories, Stories.” Romero states that telling stories in speeches “is a classic example of blindly following convention wisdom – the more stories, the better. But realistically, not everyone has good stories or is a skilled storyteller, nor do all topics lend themselves to tales.”

He continues, “You don’t have to use stories to emphasize your points. You can yell, dance, use video, pictures, art or do a million other things to make a presentation memorable. Don’t be a commodity-based story factory – do something different to make yourself stand out.”

Perhaps on the professional speaker circuit, motivational speakers yell and dance, but I suspect no senior executive you and I write for is so inclined. Video and images, I’ll give you, but I’m not sure what Romero has in mind regarding “a million other things to make a presentation memorable.”

I don’t think I have a million ideas total in me, let alone a million on a particular speech topic.

I’d be interested to know what my fellow speechwriters think about this piece of advice. My sense is that if an executive doesn’t have appropriate stories to tell, his or her speechwriters do research until we find one he or she can use that supports the points of the speech. It doesn’t have to be something that happened to the executive or that he or she experienced or witnessed. It can simply be an “I recently heard this interesting story…” Or, “Here’s an example of what I’m talking about…”

As for Romero saying that “Not everyone…is a skilled storyteller…” I’ll give him that one. But that’s what rehearsals or speaker training are for and that’s what speaking frequently over time will give an executive – practice telling stories and increased confidence in doing so.

Personally, I think stories are what bring a speech to life and give it a humanity.

One fall night, I drove more than 30 miles through heavy rain to a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Clifton, New Jersey, to wait in line to meet televangelist Joel Osteen,  buy his book, Everyday a Friday, and have it autographed as a present for my cousin Karen’s 50^th birthday. Karen is a big Osteen fan and I knew she’d be delighted to have a personally autographed copy of his book.

Osteen sat at a desk, smiled and was polite as he signed books for exactly an hour, then left, accompanied by a few large gentlemen I assumed were bodyguards. Many people remained in line, not having made it to the desk in time.

One day I hope all good and worthy authors will be as successful as Joel Osteen, J.K. Rowling, James Patterson or Janet Evanovich. In the meantime, however, I suspect most authors are more likely to book speaking engagements, readings and book signings at libraries, community colleges, adult learning centers, churches, senior centers, before civic groups and women’s organizations. And I doubt they leave anyone in line wanting to buy their book.

How might authors approach these events to both entertain audiences and sell books?

As a professional speechwriter, I’d like to share a few tips I use in my work that might be relevant to you.

First, research your audience. I can’t say enough about the importance of this step – it sets you up for success because speaking isn’t about what you want to say so much as it is about what your audience wants to hear.

Ask the program chairman of the library, bookstore or organization to share all he or she knows about the types of people who might be in the audience. Ask what they think audience members would like to know about your writing career and book. If people have registered to attend your session, ask if you can have the names and numbers of a few; then call to ask what they’d like you to cover.

Another approach is “on-the-spot” audience research. I recently attended a women’s professional group luncheon at which an author spoke about her first published book. Before she began, she went around the room and asked each of us what we might like to know. She got some great questions, including where her inspiration came from, when she found time to write, how long it took to complete her novel and what obstacles she faced along the way. She wrote each one down and then wove the answers into her remarks.

Second, get personal. As authors, you know better than most the importance of “story.” When I write speeches for executives, I encourage them to illustrate their remarks with stories that demonstrate their knowledge of the subject, their understanding of the human condition, or their sense of humor.

Ask yourselves what stories you want to tell in your remarks. What is the impression you want to leave? What do you want your audiences to think, feel or do following your presentation? Do you want them to think you’re an interesting, knowledgeable person? One whose book they just have to read because the plot sounds fascinating or because the topic is relevant to their lives? Think of how you will lead them to that conclusion through your remarks.

Third, if you can, visit the meeting site before you’re scheduled to present there. Check out how the room will be set up, where the podium or lectern will be, or simply where you’ll be standing. Will the audience be able to see you clearly and easily? Will you need a microphone to be heard, or can you simply sit or stand and be heard by everyone who will be in the room?

I recently attended a poetry reading at my local library given by an older woman who just had a book of poetry published. I was seated only about two rows away from her, but she spoke so softly – without a microphone – that I could hardly hear her. I couldn’t tell if her poems were great or awful, and I wasn’t inclined to buy her book to find out.

Is there a table where you can place your books for sale, other literature, business cards? Do you want to bring a sign-in sheet on which to capture email addresses for follow-up marketing? Can someone make an audio or video recording of your presentation to place on YouTube or your website to further engage your audience and drive sales?

Lastly, a piece of advice I give to others and take for myself. If you want help in speaking confidently and comfortably before diverse audiences, check out Toastmasters International. Belonging to Toastmasters has helped me appreciate the art and science of speaking and has made me a better speechwriter. On a personal level, it boosts self-confidence, presents a great networking opportunity and its program meetings are just plain fun.

To sum up, then, the speaking tips I give to authors and to corporate executives are the same: know your audience, use story to add relevance and humanity to your remarks, check out the speaking venue before the event, and join an organization that will help you learn how to present with confidence and flair.

Then, one day, people will line up to get your autograph and hear what you have to say. You might even need a bodyguard or two.

I have a confession to make. When I’m writing a speech that’s supposed to be 20-30 minutes long, I don’t always read the speech out loud and time it. There, I’ve said it. I’m ashamed of myself, just as you are of me.

But recently, I’ve had to write speeches and remarks with very precise time limits. Three-to-four minute welcoming remarks; ten-minute opening remarks, a 15-minute presentation, and a 60-second elevator pitch among them.

Suddenly, mystopwatch.com has become my best friend. Are you familiar with this site? It’s great. It has a start button, a stop button,a reset button, and you can adjust the size of the numbers up to extra large.

I’m discovering it’s a lot of fun to be forced to hone my writing so that it’s crisp, clear, concise and says exactly what I want it to say in the allotted time. So much writing can be filled with corporate jargon, adjectives, redundancy. It feels good to peel away all but the most necessary words. It’s kind of like writing poetry, I think, where you shed every single word that’s not absolutely essential to your meaning.

Anyway, I’ve had fun cutting back a 1:21 second elevator pitch to 51 seconds. And I’ve had fun editing those speeches that also needed to conform to precise time limits.

Of course, I could write a whole blog about how important it is to hear the words you have written said out loud, just as the speaker will be saying them. Sometimes you’re delighted with how clever you’ve been. And sometimes you’re appalled that you ever thought those specific words arranged in that specific manner would ever come off well. What were you thinking?

And so, for many reasons, reading your words out loud – and timing them – is what all good speechwriters should be doing. I’m totally disgusted with myself that in the past I didn’t always do so. But I’m a new woman, gentle reader, and have mended my ways. I owe it all to mystopwatch.com.

Surely one of the most rewarding aspects of speechwriting is the research we do and the things we learn in order to support our clients in their fields of business, government or education.

I was recently hired by a new client – an international body whose mission is to help prevent and eliminate violence against women worldwide – to write speeches for an upcoming global conference on this issue.

My research has been both eye-opening and disheartening.

I’ve learned, for example, that globally up to six out of every 10 women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. A World Health Organization study of 24,000 women in 10 countries found the prevalence of physical and/or sexual violence by a partner varied from 15 percent in urban Japan to 71 percent in rural Ethiopia, with most areas being in the 30-to-60 percent range.

For women and girls aged 16–to-44, violence is a major cause of death and disability. A recent World Bank study on ten selected risk factors facing girls and women in this age group found rape and domestic violence more dangerous than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria.

Studies also reveal increasing links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS. A survey among 1,366 South African women showed that women who were beaten by their partners were 48 percent more likely to be infected with HIV than those who were not.

Many of us have been shocked by horrific examples of violence against women that have made headlines around the world. Last October, 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head on her school bus because she is an activist for women’s education. She is recovering.

In December, an unnamed 23-year-old Indian medical student was robbed, gang-raped and thrown from a moving bus in India. She later died. And just last month, Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old mother of one was stripped, tortured and burned alive on a public street in broad  daylight in Papua New Guinea, accused of being a witch.

Women and girls have reported being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Europe.  In British Columbia, according to Human Rights Watch, Route 16 has become infamous for the dozens of women and girls who have been reported missing or found dead in its vicinity for more than 40 years. It’s now known as “The Highway of Tears.”

In the United States, more than one million women are stalked every year. In 2009, one in ten high school students reported being hit, slapped or physically hurt on purpose by a dating partner in the previous 12 months.

And the gang rape of a 16-year-old Ohio student who was attacked after being carried unconscious from party-to-party last August prompted the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof to ask if Steubenville was much different from New Delhi.

It is enough to make one despair of the state of humanity.

It can also, however, spur one to action. The organization for which I am writing speeches is doing terrific work in this area, with programs that not only help women, but target men and boys in terms of education and cultural change.

In my own country, the United States, the Federal Violence Against Women Act is up for renewal. This week it passed the Senate with a vote of 78 to 22, and has been sent to the House. Last year, according to The New York Times, the act’s renewal was blocked “over objections to new protections for gay, immigrant and American Indian victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.“

Let us hope it passes this year.

The Times’ Nicholas Kristof often writes about global violence and women’s oppression. He and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China for the Times; they have said the global struggle for women’s equality is “the paramount moral challenge” of our era. They have also written a new book, called Half the Sky. We’re told the title comes from an ancient Chinese proverb that says that women hold up half the sky.

Perhaps it’s time for the other half of humanity to support them in that endeavor and to treat them with the dignity, respect and gentleness that all of us deserve.

On those days when our minds seem bereft of ideas, when the words come wooden and stilted and we’re not sure why we ever chose this God-forsaken profession in the first place, it’s good to remind ourselves that others have faced a blank page or a blinking computer screen and thought deeply about this writing life.

Buck up, therefore, as we find wisdom in what writers of note have said about writing.

We’ll begin with poet and author Maya Angelou,  who wrote: “What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

Sometimes I feel disgusted, like the great French novelist Gustave Flaubert, who said, “Writing is a dog’s life, but the only life worth living.” Oh, all right; I guess.

Sometimes I remember the important truth Anais Nin, novelist and eroticist, revealed when she wrote: “The role of the writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.”

Emerson said something similar: “To believe in your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.”

In her wonderful book on writing and on life, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott wrote, “E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.” 

Here’s something I really love that appeared in a long ago New York Times piece Marsha Norman, photo at right, Pulitzer-prize winning playwright (‘night, Mother) wrote about one of her heroes, Lillian Hellman, (author of Julia, The Little Foxes, The Children’s Hour).

Referring to Hellman’s desire to write, Norman wrote: “When I lecture or talk to students now, I preach the sermons she delivered so freely. Nobody is going to come and save you, that’s your job. Save yourself. If you don’t like where you are, get out of there. The object is not for them to like you, the object is for them to listen to you. Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don’t get it.

“Your family thinks of you as a pet, you have to leave them. They are just where you came from, they are not what you are. They will give you everything they have, but that will not make you want it, or know what to do with it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell.”

To me, these quotes apply whether you’re writing a novel, a screenplay, a press release, a speech, a blog, a white paper or refining your resume.

All of us are writers. All of us struggle to find the words that best express who we are and what we believe. And all of us need the encouragement that is sometimes found in how other writers experience this writing life.

Pablo Nerudo, author of Toward the Splendid City, put it this way in his Nobel lecture: “There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence, in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song – but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.”

Isn’t that what writers write for anyway?  To convey as best we can our understanding of humanity…sharing a common destiny.

Do you have a favorite quote about writing? What inspires you as you stumble along at the keyboard?  What rallies you when putting words to paper seems arduous and thankless? I would love to know, gentle reader.

As a writer, I find myself noticing connections between seemingly disparate topics.

Case in point: I recently picked up a copy of Women Who Think Too Much by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. Unfortunately, I learned about the book reading the author’s New York Times obituary.  Nolen-Hoeksema, a Yale psychologist, passed away January 2 at age 53 following heart surgery to repair a weak valve.

I was intrigued to learn that her work helped to explain why women are more prone to depression than men and why such low moods can be so hard to shake. The obituary states, “Her studies, first in children and later in adults, exposed one of the most deceptively upsetting of these patterns: rumination, the natural instinct to dwell on the sources of problems rather than their possible solutions. Women are more prone to ruminate than men, the studies found, and in a landmark 1987 paper she argued that this difference accounted for the two-to-one ratio of depressed women to depressed men.”

In Women Who Think Too Much, Nolen-Hoeksema describes “why rumination can be so corrosive – it is deeply distracting; it tends to highlight negative memories – and how such thoughts could be alleviated.”

As I read the book, I’m struck by how much “ruminating” relates to writing — or rather, being unable to write, write as well as we’d like to, or effectively accomplish much of anything important to us.

Nolen-Hoeksema explains, “Overthinking…makes depressed people generate poorer solutions to the problems they are actually having in their lives. Even if they come up with a decent solution to their problem, overthinkers have more trouble initiating it. We found that overthinkers feel less certain about any solution they generate, and want more information and time to ponder before committing to a decision, compared to people who don’t overthink when they are depressed. As a result, overthinkers will stay stuck in self-perpetuating cycles of doubt and indecision, never quite sure about the right thing to do.

“Overthinking makes you more negative in your thinking about your past, present and future. It interferes with your ability to come up with good solutions to your problems and saps your confidence and motivation in implementing any solution you do consider.“

Writers, as we know, are called upon to come up with good solutions – and to make good choices – all the time. How to open a story? How to structure a speech? The proof points to use in making a persuasive argument. What sources to consult and cite? The physical attributes of a character. The story arc. The quotes to include. The most powerful word choices.

When we overthink we can become paralyzed. Unable to write, to confidently make choices, to move forward.

What I like best about Nolen-Hoeksema’s book, however, is that she devotes a good chunk of it to strategies for overcoming overthinking – ranging from how to give our thoughts a rest, distract and divert our mind, turn our worries over to God and get up and get moving.

All in all, Women Who Think Too Much is definitely worth your time. Think about reading it – but not too much. Get it from your local library (I plug libraries every chance I get because my husband is a newly minted librarian). See if you don’t agree it’s very relevant to this writing life.