The Writer’s Coin

“If you want to be a good writer you have to do two things—read a lot and write a lot.”
—Stephen King, On Writing

That’s great advice from one of the most successful writers of our time. The idea is that, the more stuff you read (both good and bad—and King recommends reading bad writing too), the more you will progress as a writer and the more things you will have in your head to use at your disposal.

I like the analogy of sifting or digging (or prospecting for gold, one of those three should work for you) through as much stuff as you can to find great ideas or stories. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a novel, a short story, or trying to come up with an ad—all these activities operate under the same umbrella of creativity. The more stuff you pass through your mind, the more raw material you give your unconscious to work with.

I’ve found that exposing yourself to as many different types of things as you can is a great way to stimulate your unconscious, putting you in a better position to come up with provocative, new, creative ideas in whatever it is you do. You can do that by readin, watching movies, taking a weekend trip to a new place, or even something simple like taking a different path when you go home after work.

Here are some things I’ve done recently to try to expand my horizons while feeding my unconscious as much as I can:

• Read the novella I am Legend, which is a vampire book about the last man on earth. I never read anything in this genre so this was a stretch for me.
• Saw the movie I am Legend. It’s a Hollywood blockbuster despite it being based on a vampire book. The movie was changed into more of a zombie story too. I don’t usually like the big Hollywood movies, but this was a good one.
• Saw the movie Perfume, which is a very obscure movie that very few people have heard of about a man with an extraordinary sense of smell in 18th-century Paris. Unfortunately, he’s also a little crazy and needs to murder some pretty girls to complete his “oeuvre.”
• Re-read a couple of books on advertising to kind of keep my focus on what I’m ultimately trying to accomplish: get a job in advertising. One is a classic, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, and the other was Pick Me: Breaking into Advertising and Staying There, which I broke down into useful tips.
• I checked out a couple of books I found interesting: one is a book on boxing (Cut Time), which I’m kind of into. The other is a novel about a seaman trying to get from Nicaragua to the States (The Ordinary Seaman).

It may not sound like much and it may sound as simple as watching a bunch of random movies and reading a bunch of random books but the trick is you want to be enjoying yourself. You have to pick new things you will probably enjoy otherwise the whole sifting process goes to hell and it starts to feel like work, which is the last thing you want your unconscious mind to feel like when you start trying to tap it for good ideas.

Remember Stephen King’s quote and his recommendation? When he says “a lot” he means reading for at least four hours a day. So chop chop.

Tags: ads, Creativity, digging, sifting