So: my writing background is rooted in fiction. As a kid, first I wrote about heroic spacemen; as I grew older, I expanded my interests to include heroic spacewomen (art imitating life). I knocked around a while longer, learned some more, and took to also writing about folks living here and now, on planet earth.
Alas, we fiction writers who lack wealthy relations and/or representation have to earn the means to eat some other way. Copywriting seemed like a viable means of feeding the beast, but early in my studies, I struggled with a new “skill set”. This seemed a bit too much like having a job in sales, which I’ve never felt that I could do all that well.
It took a recent conversation – with one of the smartest guys I know – to set me straight. I was explaining how tough I found it to write a pitch for something. He has done some sales – enough to know that it involves engaging people’s emotions. “It seems to me,” he said, “that an ad is like a short story. So, just write that.”
I have to agree – and not just because he’s my father. It makes a good bit of sense to see dramatic, or story-telling, possibilities in any sort of writing – it all drives towards the same thing: communication. I’ll post “spec” ads on the Wares page.
inky brightness 