It can’t be often that a copywriter gets lost for words.

Whilst I may not be totally flummoxed, I’m certainly a lot quieter than normal. Why? One word. Pain.

I slipped on my ridiculously steep drive on a rainy Auckland day a few weeks ago. I didn’t hit the ground but I twisted very awkwardly. It took about 3 weeks for my body to give up fighting the injury. I woke last week with my back in total spasm. I was crying. It hurt.

After a few days full of codeine and anti-inflammatories I managed to get up and walk. Then finally I managed to sit for short intervals. Now, over a week later, I’m still finding life uncomfortable. Living with low level pain is tiring and makes me grumpy. I hate having to take so many pills to get me through the day.

It turns out I did a pretty good job of breaking myself. I gave myself whiplash and I managed to put my pelvis out of alignment. Thankfully the suspected slipped disc was ruled out after an x-ray. But the x-ray did show that I have no curve in my lower lumbar region. I feel very special.

So my neck and my pelvis are pulling at each other and causing continued muscle spasms. This in turn means the nerves are being pinched. I’m not in a happy place.

And it has been made a whole lot worse by being unable to run the Auckland half-marathon last Sunday. I couldn’t even have walked 5km let alone run 21km in a new personal best. Six months of training. Running at 5am three times a week. Gone in one slippery moment. And I can’t even go out for a run to clear my head.

Of course it plays havoc when you are trying to be a copywriter – how do you write lying down? And how do you get comfortable once you can sit again? If there are any others out there, copywriter or not, with useful tips please share them. I’m surrounded by cushions and pills.

In the meantime, here are some words from a silenced copywriter:

Pain, ache, cramp, discomfort,hurt, smarting, soreness, spasm, suffering, throb, agony, distress, pain in the neck, inflammation, injury…….

This is a genius PR idea.

The pink ribbon has become synonymous with breast cancer awareness right across the world since it started back in 1992. It is a strong symbol of hope, conviction and defiance.

Before I moved to Auckland, I used to live in York in the north of England. Green Hammerton, one of the villages near my old home, has decided to change its name as part of the Breast Cancer Awareness Week – October 8-15 2011.

Green Hammerton is set to spend 7 days as Pink Hammerton

One woman who has herself been fighting breast cancer, has convinced a whole village to get right behind Breast Cancer Awareness Week. She’s done an amazing job.

Writing is never just about words.  In fact a huge part of it is research and knowing what to do with all the things you find out. Google has proved to be my best friend on many projects. It helps build knowledge, check facts and generally gives more authority to your writing.

Here I my favourite ways to work Google harder:

1) Excluding words

Use a minus sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

e.g. “copywriter auckland” -technical

2) Specific document types

If you are looking for presentations or PDFs use the “filetype:” command within the search.

e.g. “copywriter auckland” filetype:ppt

3) Numeric ranges

If you want to search specific date, price or other numerical ranges use two periods (or two fullstops) between the values.

e.g. “prime minister” 1990..2011

4) Calculator

You can also do quick sums on Google.

e.g. 12*12

5) Definitions

If you need to check the definition of a word or phrase, put “define:” into the search term.

e.g. define:copywriter

6) Similar words

Searching for a word that has similar terms associated, such as copywriter and copywriting, with it can be tricky but Google can help with the “~” symbol.

e.g. auckland ~copywriter

7) Explicit phrases

The more you can narrow your search the better. Just enclose your search terms in double quotes to make Google work harder for you.

e.g. ”copywriter auckland”

Well if you live in New Zealand, you’ll know there’s a bit of a game about to happen. I can’t go anywhere in Auckland without a copywriter somewhere trying to get my attention with messages linked to the Rugby World Cup. In amongst the deafening marketing chatter, I spotted this advert. It made me chuckle.

For anyone unsure about the New Zealand accent, this will give you the perfect insight into how to communicate clearly over here.

Every once in a while I look at something and wonder how it all came about and whether it is really ever going to take off. How about this one:

Beer for girls hits the UK

Molson Coors are about to launch a beer for girls. Called Animee, the move is designed to add to the 17% of British women who currently drink beer. It will come in three flavours: clear filtered, zesty lemon and crisp rose.

The marketing director is quoted as warning that …”it is important when launching a female beer not to be too patronizing.” But isn’t the entire thing rather daft?

Would I drink beer if it was in a more feminine bottle? Nope.

Would I drink beer it if it was given a fluffy name? Nope.

I drink beer because it is lovely on a warm day lapping up the Auckland sunshine. Admittedly I prefer it out of a bottle but I sank a few pint glasses in my university days.

Now I get the idea that beer advertising is generally very masculine. And that this may well be putting off a chunk of females from having a try. But is launching a whole new drink category going too far? Should they not explore other tactics to appeal to female consumers? The other problem is that cross-selling Animee to men is very unlikely. Is there sufficient shelf space in the average English local pub to devote to what is likely to be a single-sex drink?

I’ll be really fascinated to see if this beer for girls idea is a winner. I can’t wait to read more and see how they position it. And whether they do indeed manage to avoid patronizing women. There will be a load of hype around the launch but whether the fluffy, girly-yet-sophisticated positioning will pay off in the bars and clubs of Britain is anyone’s guess.