Friday, April 17, 2015

When you don't "feel" creative.

In the hurly-burly of agency life, there's very little chance to be a prima-donna.

Turnaround times are generally so fast, that there's no time to waste tossing pencils into the ceiling tiles. If you want to be precise about it, ceiling tiles are a thing of the past, too, but that's besides the point.

What I mean is this.

You have a meeting tomorrow and you need to write four pieces of body copy for the all-important deck. This used to be a week's work. Now it's an hour's.

I'm not really complaining. It's the way things are. We have to process and create faster than ever.

Just recently I came upon 11 Commandments from the seminal author of "Tropic of Cancer," Henry Miller.

It's his fifth Commandment that gave rise to this post.

"When you can't create you can work."

There's a lot of wisdom in those seven words.

Some times there's simply no time to flights of poetic fancy. Some times, let's face it, you just don't have it.

Still, you have to get it done.

No excuses.

That's when work comes in. When you put one word after another and make things work.

It would be nice to spend days gazing off into the abyss and waiting for the whim to tickle your caprice.

But life, and work, doesn't respect your moods and your inclinations.

There's only one thing to do.

Work.

--

And now, a dissenting opinion from Mr. Ray Charles.

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