Dead. Line.

After almost 50 years of being on copywriter deadline, I've learned something about myself.

There are times when you must hunker down and get the copy done before you call it quits for the night.

Maybe even more often, there are times when you have to close-up the Mac and save the writing you have to do for the morning.

Morning, like Spring, is the awakest time for me.

I rise and shine.

Morning--even 6AM--is my favorite time to play the over-achieving squirrel and cracking the toughest nut.

The problem many people have with getting things done is simple.

Almost everyone fucks themselves up with this. 

Myself included.

I have a copy meeting this afternoon (it's Thursday as I write this.) 

And two ads to re-write.

The ones I was too tired to re-write last night.

I have a busy day leading up to the copy meeting. 

I really didn't know how much I had to do on the copy and how much time it would take.

Not knowing what you have to do and how much is when work enters a dangerous territory.

For mneumonic purposes let's name this conundrum the Doom Loom.

When you don't know exactly what it is you have to do.

So it looms over you like an angry god.

That leads to avoiding the work you have to do.

So it gets loomier and doomier.

It soon becomes easier to perseverate over, worry about and thus avoid.

That's what I did when I finally sat down this morning to re-write that copy.

I changed, as instructed 150,000 to over 160,000.

I remembered a fact that I thought would strengthen the copy.

I broke one long sentence into two better sentences.

I made an end-line pithier.

And I made a nice, clean, well-organized deck.

Then I sent it all to my Account Director.

It's her problem now.

It took me twenty minutes.

As most things do.

Even Doom Looms.