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STOMPING MY WAY THROUGH THE AD WORLD
My fellow writers,
As I finish up the short-term advertising gig I've been doing over the past couple of weeks, a fourth lesson (continuing from last week) comes to mind: collaboration.
In just about every case, collaboration made the pieces I worked on really sing. The strange thing was that people didn't necessarily have to know much about writing or advertising in order to help. They just had to be able to express their feelings on whatever it was we were doing.
I also saw the down side of collaboration, too - one of the other potential writers couldn't really work that well with me because of a clash in styles. I wrote copy; she kept writing word associations. It was unfortunate, too. She was an experienced person, and I had seen some of her great work before. But when she got in a room with me, she clammed up, and ended up not really doing all that much on the project on which we were supposed to partner. I'm sure she would have eventually come around and been great, but we were under heavy deadlines, and I have to say that being a professional means finding a way to write (and beat the deadline) on your worst days. So that was disappointing.
But it did nothing to offset the joy of winning the job for this company. I helped a 10-person company to beat out one of America's largest design firms for a contract. Which just goes to prove another theory of mine - that when the odds are stacked against you, the only way to beat them is to execute the hell out of your ideas.
Now, I've only got a few hours before I have to be up to write again, so I'm out of here. But soon, I will be applying these shortform lessons to my upcoming script. I can't wait.
Collaborative,
Grady
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