cursing at the dinner table is okay now π
How to create a delicious confection of words that leaves your readers hungry for more.
I ate the most delicious piece of marketing content on Saturday night.
It paired perfectly with our bottle of 2019 burgundy. (One of, uh, four bottles we brought to the restaurant. For four people. That’s normal.)
Okay, okay. So I obviously didn’t eat a blog post or nurturing email.
What I actually ate was a mad-scientist chef’s take on a classic treat that shouldn’t work but does: hot, salty french fries dunked in a cold, sweet milkshake.
It arrived at our table in an half-filled soda-shop glass, billowing with milk-white vapor. Not much to look at, honestly.
The chef, who clearly likes to fuck with his patrons (the first dish was meant to be eaten straight off the plate, pig-in-a-trough style, mmmmnothankyou), first instructed us to blow into our glasses on the count of three. Vapor in the face. Neat.
Then we were asked β again, on the count of three β to plunge our long-handled spoons directly into the mixture.
1β¦ 2β¦ 3β¦
Magic.
π¦ Through the top layer, craggy bits of vanilla ice cream made with liquid nitrogen.
π₯£ Through the middle layer, a piping-hot savory potato-leek soup.
π₯ Alllllll the way through to the bottom layer, ultra-crispy cubed potatoes that maintained their integrity despite sitting in a glass full of liquid.
We took our first bites.
And I stared at my glass. Then I cursed. Repeatedly.
It was maybe the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.
Back to the content thing.
Content can absolutely delicious.
It can be surprising.
It can be so amazing that people glare and curse at it. (Seriously! One of my highest forms of praise is “dammit this was so well-written it pissed me off.”)
The best content has layers.
π³οΈ That top layer, a sweet story that opens a curiosity loop and invites them to dive in.
π³οΈ The middle, details that draw them in and keep them engaged. (Leeks optional.)
π³οΈ The bottom layer? Crispy nuggets of wisdom. The kind you can really sink your teeth into.
The end result: a tasty delight your readers will remember, maybe even tell their friends about. At the very least, it’ll leave them wanting more. Or cursing.
And you are in for a treat, because my pal Cathlyn Melvin brings all the boys to the yard with her word milkshakes.
She’s the first of six guest contributors in my upcoming Shine Theory email series. I’ll be taking a break for vacation and knee surgery (also a perfect pairing, who knew!) and wouldn’t trust just anybody with this list of beautiful humans.
I can’t wait for you to meet Cathlyn, plus more of my friends in the weeks to come:
β¨ Liz Cortes will share about local SEO, which is basically dark wizardry to me
β¨ Annie Schiffman (an improv expert!) takes the social media beat
β¨ Client extraordinaire Amanda Hofman is on custom merch
β¨ Rachel Zurer wants to tell you about staying booked
β¨ Catherine Brown, all-around powerhouse and author(!), knows alllll about selling like a human
Get. Excited.
Solidly #teamfrostyandfries now,
Paige
P.P.S. Work wife and her team just took my new website live. The words were there, but the design never quite felt Paige Worthy worthy (curse of the DIYer). Now it’s pleasantly unhinged, just like me.
