Remarks…. ReMArks….rEm..aaRk..s…REMARKS

I walk into work, super excited to learn new material and help out the best that I can. Chris says to me, “alright, so I’m going to show you what remarks are and the jist of how to write them.” I scoff, I was an English major, HELLO, I already know how to write. I ramble in my journal, my personal blog, I read a book once a week, I KNOW WORDS, HA! Why do I need to be taught how to write remarks!?

……

……..

………………….

“Megan, are you done with the remarks yet?”

“NO CHRIS, NO I AM NOT, BECAUSE THESE ARE HARD AND I DON’T THINK I CAN USE THE WORD PERFECT ONE MORE FREAKING TIME.”

That high horse I was on bucked me off so fast I didn’t have a ‘perfect’ landing…. and it threw me back into another time I came to blows with my writing.

About 8 years ago I was the Sports Editor for my school’s newspaper. That meant I was in charge of writing and creating the page in which my content was to be produced. When our paper would go to rest, we would only have two nights to get it ready. I would spend HOURS and I mean HOURS, staying at school to create the perfect layout. I would turn it in after five-six hours of changing it, only to be shot down time after time saying the layout needed more work.

So… after a few months I thought something should probably change in the way I was approaching this. I mean this isn’t rocket science; it is word placement and photo placement, so why can’t I get it right? I realized I needed to just give myself one hour to complete it and what do you know? Trusting my gut the first time around proved right. I would walk out of the Journalism room hours before my fellow writers because I just trusted my gut the FIRST time.

Here’s what I know. The more time I would spend writing and editing and formatting the more my mind would change, the more I would want something else. I made it too complicated. I would critique these minor details that NOBODY would even care about…

The same goes for remarks… Here’s the thing I know about writing, you’re never going to perfect that sentence… I spent an entire semester course in college on editing ONE paper I wrote throughout the semester. That was the point though, writing is never finished, it will ALWAYS be editable. Your job is to describe this home’s story, simply & quickly. There are only so many words in the English language, there are only so many times you can use the online thesaurus to make yourself sound like a witty genius….but…here’s the thing…it isn’t about you, or how well you can write or how smart you want to sound. This is about your clients home, somebody’s future home, it’s about the house…. Therefore, just do your job. Describe the homes’ story.

When I write remarks I go through the photos, I pick out three standout qualities that I believe make this house a home and I allow myself fifteen minutes to do it. That’s it, then I turn it over to Chris and he either fixes or changes a few words or we send it off. Going with your gut, and allowing yourself to TRUST yourself enough the first time will save a lot of hours, headaches and spilt coffee over just 512 characters.