To all the aspiring writers..
Say goodbye to inhibition, & hello to writing.
I must say, i hate not writing.
I had tried to spend a three-week all-me vacation, and my sneaky laptop inched up & out of my rucksack, got right past the biscuits and tumble of convenience store provisions, past the ruckus of all the remainder of makeup, through the disorganised array of sunnies - that signalled it was time for a change (of style, and possibly, colour because a new decade has now gone past), and landed right smack into my vacation time - and started demanding me to write something - anything.
That laptop had taunted the life out of my privacy, and threatened the promise of a tauntless next-decade: if I write, i will get read and popular and the people in my life would get “allergic to me” a side effect of the media, and if i don’t write, what else would I do?
I had spent a stop-writing get-awayfromyourdesk with a desk away from my desk. And tried other things, apart from working/ writing. I tried cooking, painting, sewing (i don’t knit), chatting incessantly with women dates, and workspace-hosting. Nothing.
I wish it were a bit simpler, and i could compare it with fishing - that seems relaxing, (not rowing on the thames, or the potomac) — more of a pace, than a mad race to a goal, end result should be something of a calmed persona inside - instead of stressing a bit more. Perhaps i was in the wrong genre? Or the wrong focuss, or milieu - no tech stuff, please - i hear my past life whispering loudly in my ear.
Or maybe write elegantly, like all the classical writers on my shelf! A good parallel is this — from Create Academy: pressing flowers - (by @JamJarEdit) where, it’s more of a hobby, & not a stressful artform that we misle our (otherwise) sensible selves into perfecting.
That’s not how writing actually works.
If anything, commercial writing is very different from editorial. Copy/ brand writing is more - on command (as it is actually really paid highly for), and has loads of “talk points” or pointers from brand people, and left to the writers to “polish up” in the style of the brand helm to keep it in the Corporate Identity, as well as Media-Formatting — but editorial writing, is from the heart.
So, when you have nothing on today - heed this: Anyone can be a writer. (Just like anyone can be a pressed-flower artist).
My friend from Proctor & Gamble (in the Marketing Department), had declared ages ago - to me, while i was holding a non-screaming 2-month-old baby in the cradle of my arms, that she wanted to actually be in Advertising, specifically in Creative. So, take heart and learn that it is never too late to be anything. David Ogilvy became an Advertising Person in his forties, and i think it is never too late to garner an award or two when you think you are really “past your prime”. Think Paulina Porizkova, but for advertising. I think that is quite possible, and will prove it by being something else myself (at way past its perceived prime).
Oh wait, this is actually *That.
Writing - is, like any form of art (but mostly, with a serious deadline):
- Writing is a discipline, especially if it is your career path.
- The discipline spans a few prospects: digital, and copywriting (tv, media, print), as well as in-house everything (as in Creative Directors that work in media houses).
- And then there is the: Corporate Communications people.
- Is Marketing writing? Not really — it’s email. (Poke!)*
- Theses writing, is writing. (Research and development briefs and then, eventually issuing a presentation of findings to client).
I was about to polish up a goodbye letter - but then realised, even when my 2016’s testing out Medium-platform-and-CMS-products turned eventually into: “Of Hothouses and Breadcrumbs”, is now prematurely, indefinitely closed - it (the writing about life) never really is done.
*I am a writing from a Marketing perspective today, or as this profile’s simplified edict - (Since we know people don’t actually SCROLL the pink tabs that does exactly that.) — and will specify at some point -if i had a writer hat, or a commercial hat, an editing-design, or a more stylised marketing hat on.
