What an idea, sirjee!

“Try crafting it differently”, a phrase most commonly heard in the creative dept. One would stumble upon it like a stone on the road. 22 lines, 7 hours and yet no conclusion. You cannot see breathtaking writing by simply picking up words from a sentence and rearranging it to form a sentence. This ain’t some jigsaw puzzle Mister! This is exactly why I am referring to them as ‘line options’ because they just remain lines at the end of the day. I remember a colleague of mine saying “the writer in me died the day I got into copywriting”.  The thought freaks me out more than a ghost. Yes, there are mind-blowing, hair raising long copy ads and then, there is scam.  Or they’re there on adsoftheworld. Because most great ideas are killed on the operation table like a dear friend rightly put it. It doesn’t take a minute to press the delete button on your keyboard, but it bloody takes hours of passion and love in crafting that line, which you call an ‘option’.  An idea is pure, raw, innocent, excited and needs some nurturing for it to grow. It’s just like a baby. Why use your ego to kill it before it takes shape? It didn’t do any harm to you. Maybe it doesn’t suit your taste, but you are not the Holy Lord of Creativity who is blessed with some divine creative intervention. Even a peon can be creative. Even the sweeper in your office can be creative. All it takes is just a simple thought. Ideally, there should be some public service ad for this theme- Don’t kill ideas with your ego. I don’t want to stick to A for Apple. I don’t want to read the 6ft rulebook. There is life beyond an e-mailer and a banner. Why do the biggies want to scrutinize a full stop, a comma and a font? Give us some space, give us some freedom, have faith in us even if we’re juniors.  Let us flow. Let us fly. We know where to restrict ourselves. On that note then, let me get back to rearranging words from a line and give you another ‘option’ that you will again delete. While you can go back to scam and win that Grand Prix, which I thought was just a formula one race so far. 

One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

So long I had heard of a nail biting finish, never a nail biting start. I don’t know how the end will be. The morning tea tasted different today. The voices around weren’t the usual ones. I wasn’t on the side where I was asked to produce daily job status reports and to do lists. I didn’t have anything on the ‘checklist’. There were cold stares, hesitant smiles and mixed vibrations from all around.  The workstation had posters of some semi nude women and I badly wanted to tell the world I’m straight. The million dollar question, ‘Art or Copy?’ determines your identity. I knew that instant, that I was standing at the entrance of a new world, a new battlefield and the battle is dirty. After a point, my vision does not consider the countless number of people fighting here daily. Some are dead, some are semi dead and some are alive and kicking ass. I would be considered a part of my army only if I killed a few egos, shed some blood and proved my worth.  I still cannot fathom how I landed up here, but this is where I wanted to belong always. There are a zillion questions that are unanswered. It’s day one in the ‘creative’ side. It’s day one at reality.  I don’t know what questions to ask during briefing sessions, because I’ve been the poor good old servicing fella till just a few days back. What would  my first thought be?  I’m still trembling at the thought of thinking. I have to learn to live the superficial life. Gold, silver and bronze are beyond metals now. Butterflies seemed to have made a home for themselves in my tummy over the past couple of days. New faces. Roads that do not lead me to the yellow and white walls anymore.  I feel like a cuckoo’s young one, who has been abandoned by her mother and asked to fend for herself in the real bad world. So here I go, all set in my new shining armour , with a strong shield and a sharp sword and with a hope that my pen turns out to be mightier than the sword.