No, really, what the fuck do you do?

Hello friends. It seems as though some of you have found your way to this site. My intentions for this blog are to de-mystify whatever it is that I have been doing and will be doing in these next few years, as well as allow people to keep track of me and me of them. Being in grad school has managed to damage my already inept ability to keep in touch with people. So I hope you enjoy peeking into my noggin every once in awhile. And remember, part of the deal is to reciprocate information about yourselves. So drop me a hello sometime, jenniferwlui@yahoo.com.

Hacks

As a writer you will never rid yourself of the nagging suspicion that you are a hack. It's a good thing, supposedly. It forces you to be a fierce self-editor. It makes you wonder how 90% of the advertising out there is produced. Are these people in hack denial? Do they honestly think that the work is good? Did they "accidently" present crap that the client inevitably latches onto? What if you're a hack and you're the only one that doesn't know? Well, I would be really pissed at all my co-workers. It's like wandering around with a chicken nugget stuck in your teeth and having no one bother to tell you. What if you're a hack and you're the only one that knows? Fairness would suggest that you would be discovered and then shunned, I'm not sure this is what happens. But I don't know much. What if you can't tell the good work from the bad work? Everyone has an opinion, but if you really can't tell, you should rethink entering advertising because you will contribute to the mountains of crap that are already being produced. What makes me think I know what I'm talking about? Well, I don't. I could very well have all three of the preceding characteristics. But if I do please be a friend and let me know I have something in my teeth.

San Fran in Jell-o

With the bippin' and the boppin' and the puddin' pop.

Tap that cerebrum

"Easy reading is damned hard writing." After a few months here as a copywriter my appreciation of Hawthorne's sentiments have never been more apparent. I've developed a love/hate relationship with words. They will always be a love of mine, but have transformed into the bane of my existence. Every waking moment struggling with them. Chasing them or whittling them down. Write a paragraph on anything. Now look at that paragraph, chances are there are a dozen extraneous words in there. Find them. Remove them. Replace them. Rewrite it. Now make sure it has the right voice, is talking to the right people, has the right message, is clever, or not, works with pictures, or not, has the right number of words, and a dozen other requirements that will be imposed upon it. Daunting enough to persuade you not to write anything at all for fear of failure. But that's another thing about being a writer, you have to be willing to write badly. If no one did, there wouldn't be much in terms of written words in the civilized world. No one sits down and writes a Pulitzer in their first draft. You wouldn't imagine the crap you have to wade through to get to a good line or idea even. But it's presently the only known path. If you know a better way, you should patent it right now.
As for time, the other day I was talking to a friend who is a bona fide time nazi and she brought up the fact that she didn't like research. It "wastes time when i don't find what i'm looking for right away." I set her straight about wasted time. You have no idea about wasted time until you are an advertising creative. With the amount of time spent pissing around, staring at your partner, and sifting through shitty, shitty ideas we could have cured cancer. Had we been scientifically gifted. But we are not, for the most part. We do something much less noble (something else to keep in perspective). We have our brief shining moments where we move the human race forward, but the majority of "advertising" is keeping us all stapled right to our stagnant ideals. Hopefully, what we're trying to do here is attempting to change that. Look for an advertising revolution or a spike in Prozac use for advertising creatives in the next few years.

Play "free bird"

We've been here for a little over two months. I'm sure there has been a time when everyone has questioned why they are here. But I'm also positive that that number is outweighed by the number of times they can't believe how lucky they are. It's been a wretched euphoric ride. In some ways it becomes easier, but the perpetual balance of the adcenter universe ensures that other parts become immensely more difficult. I'm glad we get to test out the concept of "balancing your life" here. At any given time, there are a dozen different things pulling you in million different directions. I have naively been ignoring my "real life," but quickly realized that your "life" keeps you sane. It's counter-productive to bury yourself in your work, for you have nothing to put in besides the work itself. The final product becomes a predictable regurgitation of a generic ad concept. To be a good writer you must have a life and go experience it. I try, we'll see if I can put this into practice.