The Writers 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.

I recently finished re-reading this incredibly useful and helpful book and so I decided to highlight some more good quotes and tips that I found especially enlightening:

• Distance yourself: I’ve mentioned this one before but the more I sit down to write the more I find it to be true. It also helps to work on two or three different products or campaigns at once so you don’t get sick of banging your head against the same wall with nothing to show for it. Once you switch gears and start working on that other product, it gives your unconscious some time to mull it all over.

• Persuasion: “Many contemporary advertising people seem to have given up on the job of persuasion. Instead, they concentrate solely on gaining attention.” This whole topic is very interesting to me because I took a lot of philosophy classes in college and in grad school I had a Rhetoric course that discussed the power of persuasion in a very logical, how-to manner. I still have these books (they are old and greek) and revisiting them always seems to provide some good tidbits of information or inspiration (interestingly enough, a lot of them sound like your modern-day lawyer sitcoms, which is pretty strange but makes sense).

• One page 126 there is some good advice for those trying to break into the industry NOW but don’t have a book to show. Before I go any further though, you should already know that your portfolio is the end all be all. That is your everything. It is the most important part of your job/career search. With that said, the book discusses other things you can do to get your foot in the door like sending an agency a list of your favorite ads and smart reasons why you like them so much (“heavy on references to good strategies and consumer insights”). The book goes on, “Write about why you want so badly to be part of a company that’s all about great work. Bottom line for agencies is that they want people who are passionate about ads.” I think this is a great thing to include even when you do have a book—it can only give you an edge over other candidates.

• “So look for your inspiration in as many other places as possible: art galleries, movies, culture, your family. The business values fresh solutions to problems, not familiar ones.” This kind of relates to a post I wrote earlier about getting out of one’s routine to keep the creative juices flowing.

This book is a great read and joins other classics out there like Hey Whipple, Squeeze This and How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising.

Product: JB Wagoner’s Tequila
Medium: Print/Online
Campaign: Welcome to America

Page 1 (or part one of an animated .gif):

Page two:

This one has a great backstory: The guy who first made this tequila just happened to have some blue agave plants in his yard or something and decided to make tequila out of them. Turns out you can’t call it tequila unless it’s been grown in Tequila, Mexico. So he fought it, lost, and eventually came out with Temequila, now known as JB Wagoner’s. It’s a premium Tequila and it’s billed as the only “tequila” you can get in the US. The catch is, you can’t call it Tequila.

The guy is an irreverent dude, he stormed a Tequila convention a few years back because they wouldn’t allow him in. He isn’t afraid to challenge the establishment. So while his “tequila” is a serious drink (100 proof and 100% distilled) what I’m going for here is for some of that irreverence and “in-your-face” feel of the brand.

I’m curious if it’s too wordy or doesn’t get enough of the story across though. Any thoughts? The other one for this campaign is going to be similar but instead of focusing on what NOT to drink with tequila it’ll be on how fast you are supposed to drink it. Locals will say small sips are the way to go, but the picture on the second ad will be of someone taking a shot or drinking straight out of the bottle.

Any thoughts?

- “When working on an assignment, try to expose the deepest, most surprising, human truths associated with that product.”

- The Brain Dump: “Start each day by filling three pages with whatever words come to mind. The intent is to get rid of all the mental garbage that builds up and interferes with the creative process.” I know for a fact that this one works. I once wrote a page of crap for a story, threw it away, and then proceeded to write one that ended up winning an award. Only after the crap was out of the way. This is creativity and it most definitely applies to ads too.