I’m a creative.
This is no boast or grandiose proclamation. I am a creative. I must create things.
I’ve been very lucky, for the past fifteen years, to make a decent living at being creative. Back when there was this new thing called the internet, I taught myself to design and program because I thought it would be cool to get a job doing something that I would enjoy and was artistic. After I learned how to write html and put together designs for websites – ahem, which I’ve won quite a few awards for over the years, toot toot – I found a job at an advertising agency.
Advertising agencies are usually divided into two (or more) sections. But all advertising agencies have an account management department – those are the folks who figure out what needs to get done – and the creatives.
Yes, they call us creatives. Or long-hairs. Or turtlenecks. Whatever. We office in The Creative Department. We are the wacky folks who write the copy, design the logos and brochures and websites. We are the people who actually do the work while the Account Executives wring their hands and make promises to clients – promises that they won’t have to fulfill. We would. We do.
Anyway, I grew older, wiser. I found that I was pouring all my creative energy into the worst of all possible things. ADVERTISING. Advertising is a horrible, shallow industry where failed artists go to strangle their malformed dreams in lieu of a paycheck. Gotta eat. Gotta pay the rent.
I’m a believer in creative energy. You only have a certain amount allotted to you every day – kinda like mana or hps in RPGs. If you burn that energy working on the newest TCBY campaign, there’ll be that much less when you get home and pick up the guitar and start writing songs, or hit the keyboard and start banging out that novel.
So I’ve learned to conserve some of my creative energy at work. The deal with advertising is that everything has to be done yesterday. You remember when I mentioned the Account Execs? Their promises? The deal is, because they don’t know HOW to do the work, they usually have no idea HOW MUCH TIME it takes to complete anything. So they’re always writing checks your ass has to cash. So, it is always late nights, early mornings.
But whenever I get a break from the grind, I’m busting ass writing. Nights? Writing. Lunch time? Go to the library and write. Because I’ll be DAMNED if I’m going to waste the best hours of the day blowing my wad on the Gulf Shores CVB minisite when I could be working on a project that might actually mean something to me and consequently others.
And that was the realization I had to come to. Everything I slave over in advertising is ephemeral. A website design has a life of two years, maybe – unless the owners are retarded, and many are. A brochure or direct mail piece is forgotten in two months, to live on only in your portfolio. I took up writing to create something that might outlive myself.
So, word of advice. Follow your bliss. Write your book. Record your music. Paint your masterpiece. Don’t look for some substitute industry that you can make more money at. It’s just fucking money and you’re not gonna make a fortune. Get a job you can do, and do well, and be proud of the work there – but make sure it doesn’t wring from you every ounce of creativity so that your personal pursuits wither, and die.
Hope this makes some sort of sense. I’m on deadline and I have to finish this Channel Sales Video.
That is all.
Steve Weddle on April 7, 2011
Yeah. I think working in some time — 30 minutes or 3 hours — every damn day to work on YOUR THING is crucial to not taking your own life.
Stina on April 7, 2011
Heh. And now I feel better about having not gone into advertising. Thanks.
Benoit Lelievre on April 7, 2011
Great post. Thank you so much for that. So many people leave it all in their work and end up becoming their work, we have to take care not to fall into this trap. It’s a long and demanding emotional journey.
Paul (@princejvstin) on April 7, 2011
AS Mur Lafferty exhorts “You should be writing”.
It sounds like you embody that philosophy, John.
Thomas Roche on April 8, 2011
I spent some time in advertising too, and I have to be REALLY WEIRD here and say that I’m sorry that I didn’t enjoy it more while I was there. I was in medical advertising, and had the chance to learn a lot about science and medicine. I could have also learned more about my WHACK-ASS coworkers, many of whom were incredibly smart and educated and iconoclastic, and in some cases borderline insane. They would have made great characters, but I didn’t pay enough attention to their weirdness because I was too tired from spending all night writing fiction. I guess we all gotta decide what we have energy for and it’s worth pursuing what you really love, totally agreed on that point.
John on April 8, 2011
Thomas, agreed. There are a lot of cool folks in advertising. And then there’s a lot of smarmy douchebags one step up from car salesmen. Personal opinion, solely.
You didn’t miss nothing, except maybe the science and medicine part, and you seem to be doing just fine on that front.
work and creative energy « searching for the muse on April 19, 2011
[...] writing for a living means you have a little less creative energy to spend on your own projects. This post by John Hornor Jacobs, an advertising creative by day and a fiction writer by night*, argues the same thing. I’m a [...]