Eloise de Witt

I'm Eloise de Witt. I'm based in South Africa and I'm a writer.

A writer, what does a writer do? So we can all tell stories and we can all write them down but a writer does a little bit more than that. Their main goal is to convey a message, usually on behalf of someone else.

So let's say I am writing for a company called Nokia and they do phones. And what they want to do is they want to sell their phones. Then I need to know who are they selling it to, what are they selling, why are they selling it, and how do they want to sell it.

So I've got to do a lot of research, knowing who my target audience is, people I'm sending the message out to, and I need to know my product really well. This all involves a lot of research.

Then of course, writers need to know language really well and be good at grammar and spelling and editing.

So I usually get a brief. I will then thoroughly read my brief. That is like the objective that I want to achieve and how I should achieve it. And then I sit down to do my research and then I put pen to paper.

So when I work with people, it's usually someone in a department, let's say the marketing department or the advertising department. And they will give me my brief and I will then sit down and write whatever they require me to write. In other companies it works a little bit differently.

So let's say I'm working for a tech company, right? I will then work on the marketing team. The marketing manager will ask me to write something or I will work on the technical team and they will ask me to write something.

Regardless of who asks me, I need to understand very well what I'm writing about. So that means I've got to talk to other people who knows the ins and outs.

The best thing about my job is that I can communicate someone's ideas that aren't able to communicate themselves. And that really makes me excited when someone comes to you and they say, hey, wow, I really didn't know how to say that and you nailed it. Or the way you put the words, it just works. You know, that's exactly what I wanted to say.

I also work on micro-copy, which is very interesting. That is often inside an application, those small little buttons that you see everywhere or the drop down menu.

I also work on packaging. If you think about your shampoo bottle, you know, there's a little piece in the back and a little piece in the front. And those bubbles are really, really small, which means that the words you can use are very limited.

So you've got to decide what's the most important message you want to convey and what words are you going to use to convey it. And it's really really amazing when you get that right, you know to be able to convey an entire message in a few small words.

And the best thing I've ever ever had to do as a writer was name nail varnishes. So I got to actually give the nail varnishes their names and it would appear on the nail varnish bottle. So you would go into the shop and you would see the nail varnish and you would think, I came up with that name.

And nail varnishes are always fun. They always have like puns that they use or metaphors. So that's by far my favorite. Or coming up with names for new products. That's really fun.

So the worst thing about my job is that sometimes your creativity gets a little bit stuck but you still have to do your job. So you can't sit around and wait for the creative juices to start flowing. I think one experience highlights that so well.

I was working for Glamour Magazine and the editor is always exactly like the Devil Wears Prada. And she's phenomenal in what she does and I have so much respect for her. But she would literally call you into her office, make you sit down, take out a red pen and scratch all over your work.

And that's one thing because, you know, you learn to deal with feedback that's not great. Or the way that people give you feedback. But then you've got to go sit back at your desk and redo what you already gave your best shot at and you've got to dig really deep inside yourself to retry to do better than what you've already done and you already did, you know, give your best and now you've got to redo your best and that's tough.

Digging that deep is really tough but I can assure you that's absolutely where you grow as a writer and if you don't go through those experiences you will never become better at what you do.

So when I was really small, I would write my own stories and movie scripts. And I was very interested in biology but I really loved language and reading.

I would take up books from the library and by the end of the school day, I had already read the first book, like reading in the passages, reading during break. I just really, really loved books.

And I always just thought one day I'll be a writer.

And actually my path didn't turn out that linear that it just happened that way. I was very good at writing essays at school but my parents wanted me to study science. But when I stood in the queue to sign up for the science course,

I just thought to myself, this is not something that I love and having to work hard at something that you don't love is very, very hard. And I decided on a whim to change my course without my parents knowing, they found out later and weren't very happy.

But eventually they realized this is who Eloise is. This is what she's good at. And they could see that through how I flourished in my career.

So then I signed up for languages and then I did a writing course in English. And the lecturer told me I'm horrible at writing and I got such a big fright that I never wanted to write a single word ever again. And I stopped completely writing poetry. I stopped writing lyrics to words. I stopped. I just couldn't do it.

But my saving grace was that because I still love languages, I continued with language and I was really good at it at university. And my one lecturer came to me and she said, you know what, you should really consider editing as a career because you are natural.

And I then studied editing and that made me really, really good at using words and being able to write clear sentences. And so I started working as an editor and eventually I had the opportunity to write, but without having all the pressure or feeling scared about it.

And then I transitioned into writing and now it's so natural for me and just something I do all the time.

Memorable moments from my career... I think for me, it will always be a highlight that I got to work at Glamour magazine. As a teenager, I was so excited by magazines and paging through them and seeing the pictures and seeing everyone on the red carpet and the dresses and I think when you get to live out your dream that is so special.

But in the end, I learned that there are so many fields that you can write in that is equally as exciting and the world keeps on evolving.

So now one of my most favorite things that I've done is UX writing, where I write app copy. That's something that didn't exist when I started studying, it was years ago and we didn't have apps like we have today. But I've evolved as a person and as a writer and now I get to write teeny tiny buttons on apps and that's really exciting.

I think that we've always got to be realistic about careers and what they take and what they involve. And I think we don't do enough research about ourselves and where we want to end up.

So there's a very interesting matrix called ikigai And it shows you four circles... like one is what you're good at, one is what can make money, one is what the world needs and where that all intersects is what you should focus on.

Sometimes you think, I mean I literally thought that writing for magazines would be the way we see on movies but it's not. And it takes hard work and it's long hours and lots of looking at a screen and all of that.

So I think that we shouldn't base our work expectations on movies. We should go into offices. We should go and see what a typical day looks like. We should ask questions. We should listen to podcasts like these and we should ask our parents, know, ask them what do you what do you earn and what can you pay with that.

Because you think if you're good at something, you'll make loads of money. But that is not the way the world works.

So I think it's good to follow your heart and follow your passion. That definitely makes work easier. But then you've got to be realistic about what that entails.

And then you would say, OK, I know, maybe I won't own a yacht one day, but I'm OK with that because I'm doing the job that I love.

And I can say that following your passion is equally as fulfilling as having a yacht.