Draft alone. Revise together.
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
— Ernest Hemingway
Ah, the solitary life of the writer. The blank screen. The blinking cursor. The hours spent alone, sequestered with laptop and coffee, writing stories for unknown audiences and sending them out into a cold world, not knowing who — if anyone — will pick them up. It’s a life for introverts and oddballs, people who like their make-believe characters better than real-world people.
Or at least that’s what folks think. But here’s the thing: It’s not exactly true — definitely not for marketing writers, but not for novelists or poets, either. While we writers absolutely need quiet think time to write a first draft, we get to our best work when we share it with others — our peers, our mentors, our editors, our creative directors, and our clients. Sure, we draft in isolation, but we revise in community.
In creativity and writing, there is no singular genius.
Brilliant advertising and marketing writing doesn’t get created alone. Instead, it’s crafted from an interconnected web of networks and influences, all working together to shape our work into its most perfect form. It’s about one writer influencing another. And the next writer influencing someone else. And on and on and on it goes.
With a community of trusted reviewers, we can find that little spark of magic we couldn’t quite grasp when we were working alone. It could be a new way to spin a phrase, or to structure a sentence, or to end a story. Sometimes the process of creative review and revision is like polishing a smooth stone. Other times, it’s like remodeling an entire house. But experienced writers are used to it, because it’s all part of the process.
Creative collaboration isn’t for everyone.
While the potential for creative growth is greater when we collaborate, so is the risk. We must make our fragile egos vulnerable over and over again. We must accept discomfort. And when our hearts and minds want to clamp down, we must open them as wide as we can — because it’s how the light and wisdom of others gets in. Trickiest of all, we must do all this while still owning our work and retaining its integrity — knowing when to accept feedback and when to kindly and confidently say “no.”
The process isn’t always comfortable for clients, either. Sometimes, new clients come to Write On and say they need “a writer.” But that’s not ever what we give them. Instead, we give them a team. While our writers are the heroes of every project we take on, they’re always supported by strategists who ensure the messaging is on point, creative directors who push the work to be the very best it can be, and project managers who sweat the details. The end result is an investment that pays dividends — because good writing is good selling. And creative collaboration is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Embracing the collective genius.
Writers need community. We need other writers who will commiserate with us, challenge us, and inspire us. We need opportunities to experience the awe that comes from reading someone else’s precisely crafted sentence or perfect headline. Sometimes, we don’t even know we need this until we experience it — until we feel that surge of energy that comes from thinking and working together with people we admire.
At Write On, we cultivate these moments of inspiration by assembling and constantly curating a team of truly great writers. We come together to share writing ideas and strategies, we read and review each other’s work, and we constantly push each other to ever-higher levels of greatness. So that when it’s time to go off into isolation again, we bring with us the wisdom of the group, the accountability of a team, and the inspiration that comes from collaborating with some of the best writers in the business.
