Celebrating Independence

As many of us are celebrating Independence Day here in the USA this week, and with a national election on the horizon, I've been getting a few requests from new writing clients of late relating directly (and indirectly) to the political arena.

I'm not sure how many of these new projects I will be taking on as yet.

You see, I've been buried in a 72-hour non-stop crash course in screenwriting for a potentially new television series for a fairly large network. I'm only one third of the way through the "treatment" and "overview" stages ...and ready to dive into the presentation script. Well, 4 episodes of script, actually. And I'm LOVING every minute of it!

Even so, I did decide to "test the temperature of the waters" out there on the political scene, since writing copy is my bread and butter writing full time from home.

I was a bit surprised by some of my findings.

For example, did you know that "...nearly three-fourths of 17- to 29-year-olds say they're registered to vote." [source]

Equally interesting is that "a recent CBS-New York Times-MTV poll finds that one-third of Americans aged 17 to 29 have visited a presidential candidate's Web site and that 15 percent say they've been to a candidate's MySpace or Facebook profile."

(Sidenote: They don't know yet what's happening behind the scenes at Time4me. I'll tell you more next month.)

I'm curious to see how this young group will be influencing the next elections, considering that -- 1968 was the last year when the USA registered a voter turnout better than 60 percent -- and then factor in the results from the poll referenced above.

I'm guessing there might be more than a few politicians seeking to beef up their web presence.

Speaking from experience, writing for the Internet is different than writing emotional t.v. campaigns, snappy radio spots and slick 4-color brochures.

And yet, in all cases, WORDS MATTER.

Happy Independence Day to all my visitors, relatives, friends and neighbors. And belated Happy Canada Day to our neighbors to the north. Stay safe and enjoy the fireworks!

PS: Special thanks to Debbie and Scott for an excellent show Saturday night! We loved it!