Before I was a copywriter I defended copyright law by working as an Area Licensing Manager for ASCAP. Essentially I did the same job as this piece describes, with some of the same results. Full cups of coffee were thrown at me. Insults were hurled: ”Get out before I throw you out.” My boss even got his front pocket torn off when a club manager tried to shove his business card into it.
I worked out of my home and covered four states using a phone, laptop and company car. When people would accuse me of being part of the mafia, which did happen, I liked to either say, “if that’s true why am I driving a Ford Taurus?” Or I would be a little more confrontational. ”If I’m mafioso why aren’t you afraid of me?”
It was an interesting job. Unlike the woman depicted in the article, it never made me cry. But it did make me run to the shelter of my Taurus and make sure I stayed a few towns over on a couple of occasions.
Every January as the winter starts to take on a never ending presence I start to ask myself if I’m really going to be up for it again this year. Am I going to be able to harness the creativity and discipline to write 14 new songs and post demos for them during the shortest month of the year? I did it in 2005, 2008 and 2009, but still, it never gets easier or less daunting.
February Album Writing Month was started in 2004 by a couple of songwriters who were tired of never being able to complete a song, or at least not the amount of songs they wanted. Taking National Novel Writing Month as an inspiration, they decided to start a new challenge built around music. Write 14 songs during February, the shortest, and here in Minnesota, the most brutal month of the year.
I completed it again this year and found myself going in some unexpected directions. I’m happy to have the new material, and at some point will probably play a show with other local artists who participated. But even more than having 14 new tunes to strum, I’m reminded of what you can accomplish when you give yourself parameters and stick to them. Left to my our own devices things really can take forever. Especially when they’re creative endeavors. But give yourself a due date and announce it to other people and you hold each other accountable.
Advertising is similar. The industry has some of the most creative people in it, but these same people might never finish a book or a painting. They need due dates and entire traffic departments to keep them on track. But the end result is the same. Something that never would have otherwise existed is now part of the world.
Ad school is a distant memory. So is it safe to do condom ads now? Sure, but I don’t know if I could beat this.
Art Buddies
I’m not much of an artist when it comes to actually putting together physical costumes, so creating a “soccer playing cheetah from Milan” was quite the challenge. But Andy and I had a blast. I’d encourage any creative types, even fellow writers, to think about participating. You work with a low income child one day a week for six weeks, but the experience sticks with you much longer than that. Sign up is going on now.
Pretty cool that Alex Chilton gets some love on the house floor.
