Copywriting and Creativity

I always thought that I wasn't creative. Creativity, in my mind, was reserved for painters like Van Gogh or writers like Hemingway. Not for a mere mortal like me. The closest I got to creativity, I think, was in my junior year of high school. I took an art course because I didn't want to take a shorthand class.

In art class, I discovered that I liked to draw, especially horses. But drawing did not come naturally to me. I imagined the greats just stood before their canvas or drawing pad and the art just flowed from them, without thought or effort. Not so for me. The art I produced resulted from repeated, mechanical, painstaking attempts to copy my subject. Make what I was trying to replicate have some resemblance to the actual model. But over the course of the school year, the more I practiced, the better I became. Rembrandt better? No. But improvement nonetheless. I felt I was beginning to "create."

Now, years later, as a freelance copywriter, I still often struggle with being “creative.” (Maybe not the best thing for a copywriter to be confessing, out here on the world wide web?)

But, based on what I learned back in my high school art class, creativity can be learned, and practiced.

And, like in my junior year of high school, I practice copywriting regularly with painstaking attempts to replicate the writing genius of the “artists” I follow.

By studying the likes of copywriters Bob Bly, Marcia Yudkin, or Eddie Shleyner, to name a few, I’m educating myself. Learning good habits and methods, which in turn will provide value to my clients.

And, coincidentally enough, the pros I just mentioned frequently refer to copywriting greats that they hold in high esteem. So maybe they, too, have had their own struggles with creativity? If so, I’m in excellent company!

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