Stay Creative
My name is Dan Krewson, and I’ve been a copywriter for almost 18 years. Early in my career I made the mistake of channeling all of my creative energy into my job. For years I set aside creative writing and personal projects in favor of spending more time on work assignments. I felt that I owed this to my employers, who were paying for my time and deserved the full focus of my creativity.
And then for a few years in the early ‘00s, one of my main clients was a large software manufacturer with layers upon layers of middle-managers who were poised to kill any glimmer of a good idea. It was a soul-crushing exercise in futility that forced me to look outside advertising to get my creative fix.
That led me to start a music blog, which soon became a time-consuming endeavor with a surprising silver lining: it made me a much better and happier copywriter. Your results may vary, but here are a few ways that outside writing projects enhanced my day-to-day skill set:
KEEPING SHARP. Just as an athlete needs a routine of exercises outside the field of play to stay sharp on it, copywriters and art directors need their own projects to complete to their own satisfaction. I didn’t expect that writing about the likes of Captain Beefheart and Bad Brains would improve my copywriting skills, but it did that and more – it improved my outlook on my job.
BUILDING CONFIDENCE. As a copywriter, it’s easy to allow your sense of personal creativity to be defined by what kind of work you’re producing. But advertising is creativity by committee, and it can be a brutal process. Even the most successful advertising creatives will hear “No” about three times more often than they’ll hear “Yes.” Maintaining a set of personal projects is a good way to remind yourself of why you got in the business in the first place.
GROWING A THICKER SKIN. Blogging about a subject like music comes with much harsher criticism than even the most hardened client would ever dish out. After dealing with amped-up music geeks and anonymous Internet trolls, the average client interaction seems like a walk in the park. At the very least, clients aren’t calling me names (that I know of) while they’re rejecting my concepts.
The bottom line is that Evel Knievel didn’t jump over all that stuff without hours of practice, and your clients deserve nothing less. Advertising isn’t a death-defying leap over the Snake River Canyon, but it isn’t easy. By keeping busy creatively outside the office, you’ll make yourself and your clients happier. Take it from someone who learned the hard way…
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