The Blacksmith Writing Story

How We Started

After 15 years of technical writing and simultaneously working with holistic health practitioners for her own health, Julia Renee Black saw a hole in the market that she was uniquely qualified to fill.

She saw the need for simple text that clearly reflects the importance and effect of the conscious community and holistic health practitioners.

With an eye for detail, an intuitive ability to see the best path to marketing, and a keen knack for marketing others’ voices, Blacksmith Writing staff are well qualified to forge the message each company needs to express its values and promote itself, leading to increased business and more clients.

Why We Exist

It was with the desire to bring more validity to the conscious community that Blacksmith Writing came to be. The goals are simple:

Help others market their business specifically for the online space.

Show website visitors the business owner’s personality and values, better helping them to gain more clients.

Effectively communicate the science behind holistic health and spirituality in terms the layperson can understand.

Give people with only a secular and western medicine background enough information to see that holistic health practices are effective, safe, and scientifically backed.

Julia Renee Black

MY WHY STORY

When I was 8, I remember reading a book called 12 Bells for Santa by Crosby Bonsall and declaring to my parents that I was going to write a book called “12 Chocolates for the Easter Bunny.” Though I didn’t finish my story, this was my first memory of a life that has been shaped by words and writing.

When college hit, I majored in English and the workload helped me realize a couple important things about my writing. The first was that writing was incredibly easy for me regardless of the topic or the length (although I did better with shorter essays); the second was that I was very good at deciphering what a professor wanted and writing to the topic.

Other Projects

I’m passionate about a lot of things so I do a lot of things. Click below to learn more about my other projects.

Blogging for Business Course

This three-week course covers the basics of starting and organizing your business-related blog.

Website Content

My blog on Medium.com covers topics that are spiritual and personal.

Personal Blog

Shelter in Place

Listen to my podcast about COVID-19 from an average person’s perspective.

Join My Podcast

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Julia Renee Black

MY WHY STORY CONTINUED

In my late 20s, I landed a job as a technical writer/editor. My job was to take technically written biology, cultural resources, and other science writing and to simplify it so that anyone with a high school education could understand it. Another part of this job was writing marketing content—helping write proposals and write website and other marketing content to help sell the company’s services. The fact that I had to write two very different types of content—writing that would sell our services and writing that communicates what we learned—helped create my ability to change language depending on the audience and purpose. It was there that I learned that small tweaks to a sentence or a phrase can make a large impact in how clear (or unclear) the writing is and how writing can easily be adjusted to reflect its audience and purpose.

I loved this job, but I was the only one or one of two people editing the documents that the company was producing. For a few years, I was regularly working over 40 hours a week—sometimes only a few hours over, but 50- to 60-hour weeks occurred a few times a year. This took a toll on my body, which manifested first as an inability to sleep with accompanying fatigue; then as brain fog; then, finally, as chronic pain. After a month of pain in varying degrees, I got a fibromyalgia diagnosis.

Although strides have been made since my diagnosis, fibromyalgia is still one of those illnesses that western medicine knows little about. The medication used to treat it only works on a minority of the population; if that doesn’t work, the approach is to prescribe medication to help with the symptoms. While others have been able to manage chronic pain this way, I wanted to explore other options. In my research, I learned that alternative therapies have helped those with similar issues as mine, so that’s where I started.

While I was dealing with the ramifications of this illness, I continued working as a technical writer (thankfully) on reduced hours and I kept honing my craft while simultaneously learning about grammar rules, business language, and about acupuncture, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, nutrition, herbal infusions, energy healing, and many other alternative therapies that can help others maintain optimum health.

I was fortunate enough to find a brilliant practitioner who created a clear path toward helping me. It’s been a long, slow process that has included diet changes, acupuncture, chiropractic, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, yin yoga, and lifestyle changes, but without the holistic health industry, I wouldn’t be as healthy, energetic, or as clear-headed as I am.

So, when I decided to create my own copy- and content writing business, I made the decision to give back to the industry that has been helping me heal. I wanted to help how I can, and my superpower is simplifying and clarifying technical language. My years of experience reading, understanding, and simplifying complicated technical and scientific writing into simple, clear writing will now be used to help those in the holistic health industry communicate their values, their approach to healing, and the science behind their practices.

Holistic health practitioners should be spending much of their time helping their patients, but the demands of a business often mean they are dealing with marketing, research, administrative duties, and informing their patients about products and services that can help them heal faster and better. Hiring someone who can do all the marketing writing effectively, who understands and believes in the industry, and who has seen and continues to see how the holistic health industry changes lives can take writing tasks off practitioners’ plates so they can do what they are called to do: help patients.

The Blacksmith Writing Story

How We Started

Why We Exist