When people pause to share their memories, celebrations and concerns, light shines bright through their writing--even when the subject is challenging or the news not always good.
"Thanks so much for your patient attention.
You helped me paint a word picture!"
Recollections. |
It's all but inevitable that so many of our memories vanish with age. Family and friends whose faces and stories we once knew as intimately as our own become indistinct and all but disappear. We despair at losing these personal riches to the march of time and want to recollect them.
Brian Faulkner will help you do just that, with writing that helps bring your past back to life.
It's all but inevitable that so many of our memories vanish with age. Family and friends whose faces and stories we once knew as intimately as our own become indistinct and all but disappear. We despair at losing these personal riches to the march of time and want to recollect them.
Brian Faulkner will help you do just that, with writing that helps bring your past back to life.
336-251-2203
Memoirs, Reflections and other Family Stories.
Family Histories for Publication or Video.
CLICK HERE to read about Brian's Family History project.
Book Content Help
Custom Birthday Cards (Humorous or Touching)
Family Business Histories
Keynote Speeches & other Public Talks
Personal or Business Editorials
Personal or Business Essays
Personal or Business Letter Writing
Personal or Business Proposals
Song Lyrics, Prayers or Verse
Video Scripts
Writing Rescue (for when you get stuck)
336-251-2203
How long has it been since you wrote a personal letter?
|
Back before email, texts and other forms of social media insinuated themselves into our lives, handwritten correspondence was as much art as information. Even a “quick note” took time, because touching pen to paper called for reflection and care. It declared that “You are important to me and I’ve taken the time to write.” |
“You wrapped things up in a big red bow and presented it perfectly.” 
|
"Totally amazing ..."
- Mad Sue -
- Mad Sue -
|
A Letter Writing Success Story:
Mad Sue vs. the Electric Company Sue was mad. She’d been up for most of the night worrying, and the noise she was worked up about was getting worse. It seemed to come from the very ground her house was built on. It shook the walls, rattled the glassware and made sleep almost impossible--except when it didn’t. Oddly, some moments were quiet, as if whatever was making all the noise had decided to take a break. |
“Ahhh,” her mind said. “Ahhh,” her heart said during the quiet time. "We can relax now--just just a while," although she knew that soon the vibrations and hum that were undermining her life would return. The low frequency droning was terrible. The sound drilled through Sue’s being like one of those slow grinding things dentists use to dig the deepest cavities from your teeth. At first, she thought she could live with it, but the racket continued, which from time to time was so disturbing it seemed to be coming from her very bones. She wanted it to go away, of course, but it wasn’t going to go away by itself.
It needed her help!
Sue used to work in sales, and as every successful salesperson knows sometimes you've got to keep digging until you reach your objective, which is to convince your prospect they need to buy what you have. And Sue definitely had a prospect n mind. But first, she had to be sure what was causing the infernal racket that had so upended her peace and quiet. The most likely culprit, she deduced after considerable online sleuthing, was a power transformer, the kind used to step down high voltage from the electric company’s lines to the low residential voltage that energizes our appliances, charges our phones and keeps the kids’ nightlight glowing.
Sue knew there was one of those transformers at the edge of her property. Its cabinet was green, perhaps to blend in with her suburban neighborhood and not get noticed. But she noticed it! In fact, with growing confidence that THIS was the cause of her problem, she walked right up to the transformer and listened closely. A little hum is all she heard, so small a hum that it blended in with the neighborhood background.
“This can't be the problem,” she thought, and marched back into her humming, vibrating house and launched herself back online. Could there be some other source of these life disrupting sounds? The only real suggestion Mr. Google could come up with was POWER TRANSFORMER! They were known to vibrate and make hum when they got old (because of a phenomenon called magnetrostriction). And, she read, the vibrations of a dying transformer are pitched so low that they are sometimes felt rather than heard. Plus, these ultra-low sound waves can find their way through the ground and shake the very walls and foundations of nearby homes. And the frequency of this vibration also could produce a hum!
So, Sue called the power company, which sent a very nice engineer to her home to consider whether their transformer might have been responsible for the problem. He checked things out and decided the transformer was fine--it was old, although not unusually so, and they DO last a long time. It wasn’t loud, everyone seemed to agree, at least standing out there in the yard where they could hear it humming softly like a happy baby.
“But why do I still hear and why do I still feel these vibrations--in my house?!” Sue asked the experts. “They are ruining my life!” There was no immediate answer.
THE BEAST.
The technicians who came to check out the transformer did their best, she thought, but may never have run into a problem like this. More and more, Sue was convinced that the transformer she had begun calling The Beast was the cause of “her” vibrations, which were so disorienting at times that she had to flee the house (HER OWN HOME!) and go somewhere else for a while: walk the dog, get some coffee, hang around the library--whatever it took to relax without that maddening hum.
But then, during one of those quiet “away” moments, Sue had a brainstorm: she would ask independent acoustics and electrical experts to come to the house and offer their opinions. They were eager to help, as were the power company techs who had already come to check things out but could not declare with anything close to certainty that it was the transformer so thoroughly disrupting her life. But Sue had never been the kind of girl to give up--in fact, having a problem to solve was precisely her cup of tea. After a bit more time on the Internet, she became even more convinced that The Beast was at fault and the techs were wrong. So, she decided to write a letter to the power company, staring with the CEO (having known from her sales days that the more senior your contact the better the chance of making a sale, because when the CEO wants something to happen it usually happens). Her first draft contained a blizzard of information that she’d discovered online. Which made the letter too long. Plus, she had so many things to say that she couldn’t decide what to include and what to leave out. A few more drafts later and she was stuck.
TO THE RESCUE!
Then she remembered Brian Faulkner, the husband of a teacher friend. He had helped her write a letter to a pharmaceutical company during COVID that she thought had little hope of getting through at a time when these companies were circling the wagons and weren’t keen on engaging with people about possible side effects from their vaccines. So, she called Brian, who sympathized with her plight (and enjoys taking on challenging writing projects). Brian’s slimmed down version of Sue’s many letter drafts made it through to the upper echelons of the pharmaceutical company--and they contacted her for a personal conversation! Brian, it turns out, has the reputation of being able to toss out the chaff and keep the wheat when writing, and also had written speeches for corporate CEOs for many years and so knows how they think.
“You helped me paint the picture--and made it so clear,” Sue said of Brian’s work. She even ran his draft through an AI program, which pronounced it “perfect”.
Electric company Letter #1, which Sue sent to the CEO, stirred up some action. But even though someone responded right away, they still didn't believe their transformer caused the problem. Their rationale was that since Sue could still hear and feel the hum and vibration even when the power had been cut to the transformer, something else must be causing her suffering. Which seemed like sound, good reasoning!
But there was something they didn’t know--and Brian didn’t know--until Sue mentioned it. An illness she'd been dealing with for a long time, a complicated form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, has a variety of unpleasant symptoms, one of which is sensitivity to loud sounds that linger in the body even after the sound stops! An analog would be attending a loud concert and coming away with a ringing in the ears, which fades after awhile. Except in Sue's case, the sound lingers longer. Then, when power demand increases, the vibrations return and Sue’s suffering begins anew. Sue's Power Company Letter #2 explained this and politely asked them to replace “her” transformer. "Even if I have to pay for it myself!" she wrote. Which would be quite a stretch for a single, 70-year-old retired school teacher! Her request caught their eye and appears to have generated some conversation within the company about this one customer’s dilemma, since Sue had copied several other execs with her CEO letter:
"Yes, this old lady is still here," Sue reminded one correspondent, an engineer who had been keeping track of things, "and as a friend once said, I’m like a dog on a bone. Has (the company) come to a decision about replacing my transformer?" she asked.
She got her answer within a few days:
Dear Sue,
As previously stated, based on thorough investigation, we did not find any of our equipment serving your residence to be faulty or performing not as intended such that it would cause or contribute to the concerns that you have raised. However, after consideration, we will in good faith replace the transformer …
Sue, of course, was delighted--and had good things to say about the letter Brian had helped craft: "You amaze me with how you make every word count," she wrote. "I can’t put a price tag on what you do--thanks so much!” The net result of the collaboration was that the transformer got replaced, a great result made that much sweeter when Sue confirmed that the hum and vibration that had so overwhelmed her life finally had stopped.
Note: The sound later came back, which prompted even more Sue letters, a story we leave until another time.)
It needed her help!
Sue used to work in sales, and as every successful salesperson knows sometimes you've got to keep digging until you reach your objective, which is to convince your prospect they need to buy what you have. And Sue definitely had a prospect n mind. But first, she had to be sure what was causing the infernal racket that had so upended her peace and quiet. The most likely culprit, she deduced after considerable online sleuthing, was a power transformer, the kind used to step down high voltage from the electric company’s lines to the low residential voltage that energizes our appliances, charges our phones and keeps the kids’ nightlight glowing.
Sue knew there was one of those transformers at the edge of her property. Its cabinet was green, perhaps to blend in with her suburban neighborhood and not get noticed. But she noticed it! In fact, with growing confidence that THIS was the cause of her problem, she walked right up to the transformer and listened closely. A little hum is all she heard, so small a hum that it blended in with the neighborhood background.
“This can't be the problem,” she thought, and marched back into her humming, vibrating house and launched herself back online. Could there be some other source of these life disrupting sounds? The only real suggestion Mr. Google could come up with was POWER TRANSFORMER! They were known to vibrate and make hum when they got old (because of a phenomenon called magnetrostriction). And, she read, the vibrations of a dying transformer are pitched so low that they are sometimes felt rather than heard. Plus, these ultra-low sound waves can find their way through the ground and shake the very walls and foundations of nearby homes. And the frequency of this vibration also could produce a hum!
So, Sue called the power company, which sent a very nice engineer to her home to consider whether their transformer might have been responsible for the problem. He checked things out and decided the transformer was fine--it was old, although not unusually so, and they DO last a long time. It wasn’t loud, everyone seemed to agree, at least standing out there in the yard where they could hear it humming softly like a happy baby.
“But why do I still hear and why do I still feel these vibrations--in my house?!” Sue asked the experts. “They are ruining my life!” There was no immediate answer.
THE BEAST.
The technicians who came to check out the transformer did their best, she thought, but may never have run into a problem like this. More and more, Sue was convinced that the transformer she had begun calling The Beast was the cause of “her” vibrations, which were so disorienting at times that she had to flee the house (HER OWN HOME!) and go somewhere else for a while: walk the dog, get some coffee, hang around the library--whatever it took to relax without that maddening hum.
But then, during one of those quiet “away” moments, Sue had a brainstorm: she would ask independent acoustics and electrical experts to come to the house and offer their opinions. They were eager to help, as were the power company techs who had already come to check things out but could not declare with anything close to certainty that it was the transformer so thoroughly disrupting her life. But Sue had never been the kind of girl to give up--in fact, having a problem to solve was precisely her cup of tea. After a bit more time on the Internet, she became even more convinced that The Beast was at fault and the techs were wrong. So, she decided to write a letter to the power company, staring with the CEO (having known from her sales days that the more senior your contact the better the chance of making a sale, because when the CEO wants something to happen it usually happens). Her first draft contained a blizzard of information that she’d discovered online. Which made the letter too long. Plus, she had so many things to say that she couldn’t decide what to include and what to leave out. A few more drafts later and she was stuck.
TO THE RESCUE!
Then she remembered Brian Faulkner, the husband of a teacher friend. He had helped her write a letter to a pharmaceutical company during COVID that she thought had little hope of getting through at a time when these companies were circling the wagons and weren’t keen on engaging with people about possible side effects from their vaccines. So, she called Brian, who sympathized with her plight (and enjoys taking on challenging writing projects). Brian’s slimmed down version of Sue’s many letter drafts made it through to the upper echelons of the pharmaceutical company--and they contacted her for a personal conversation! Brian, it turns out, has the reputation of being able to toss out the chaff and keep the wheat when writing, and also had written speeches for corporate CEOs for many years and so knows how they think.
“You helped me paint the picture--and made it so clear,” Sue said of Brian’s work. She even ran his draft through an AI program, which pronounced it “perfect”.
Electric company Letter #1, which Sue sent to the CEO, stirred up some action. But even though someone responded right away, they still didn't believe their transformer caused the problem. Their rationale was that since Sue could still hear and feel the hum and vibration even when the power had been cut to the transformer, something else must be causing her suffering. Which seemed like sound, good reasoning!
But there was something they didn’t know--and Brian didn’t know--until Sue mentioned it. An illness she'd been dealing with for a long time, a complicated form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, has a variety of unpleasant symptoms, one of which is sensitivity to loud sounds that linger in the body even after the sound stops! An analog would be attending a loud concert and coming away with a ringing in the ears, which fades after awhile. Except in Sue's case, the sound lingers longer. Then, when power demand increases, the vibrations return and Sue’s suffering begins anew. Sue's Power Company Letter #2 explained this and politely asked them to replace “her” transformer. "Even if I have to pay for it myself!" she wrote. Which would be quite a stretch for a single, 70-year-old retired school teacher! Her request caught their eye and appears to have generated some conversation within the company about this one customer’s dilemma, since Sue had copied several other execs with her CEO letter:
"Yes, this old lady is still here," Sue reminded one correspondent, an engineer who had been keeping track of things, "and as a friend once said, I’m like a dog on a bone. Has (the company) come to a decision about replacing my transformer?" she asked.
She got her answer within a few days:
Dear Sue,
As previously stated, based on thorough investigation, we did not find any of our equipment serving your residence to be faulty or performing not as intended such that it would cause or contribute to the concerns that you have raised. However, after consideration, we will in good faith replace the transformer …
Sue, of course, was delighted--and had good things to say about the letter Brian had helped craft: "You amaze me with how you make every word count," she wrote. "I can’t put a price tag on what you do--thanks so much!” The net result of the collaboration was that the transformer got replaced, a great result made that much sweeter when Sue confirmed that the hum and vibration that had so overwhelmed her life finally had stopped.
Note: The sound later came back, which prompted even more Sue letters, a story we leave until another time.)