The Secrets Of Copywriting Confidence And Why Deadlines Are Your Best Friend

As confident as I am that I can get a copywriting and marketing plan job done, at a level of quality consistent with what I’m capable of and with what the client rightly expects, I still suffer crippling bouts of doubt and anxiety during the creative process. This used to freak me out. I’m sure it’s an emotional state close to what folks feel when they have a complete nervous breakdown… a sense of failure, of futility, of desperate panic and near-physical collapse.
Yet I find it funny– and even a bit invigorating now. The first few times I went through it — before I understood what was happening — I took it personally. I figured I was just inadequate, and a piss-poor excuse for a professional. Then I discovered that all the best copywriters…as well as most other creative types go through this identical stage during the process of crafting something new.
It’s like birth pangs. I won’t pretend to know what women actually go through during birth… but I’ve had women writers insist that at least the panic, the desperation and the physical exhaustion are the same. Learning this calmed me down considerably. Nobody’s ever died from the angst of creating something. But not understanding that the process was temporary and necessary…some copywriters and marketers have committed suicide because they couldn’t handle it.
So I’m telling you, as others told me: Don’t freak out.
ALL writers go through a period of brain-twisting insanity while crafting good stuff under deadline pressures. I haven’t tested this, but if you’re not going through at least some discomfort, you may not be pushing yourself hard enough. Naughty writer…cheating your client.
It’s like exercising. I have a vicious trainer who takes great pride in concocting sadistic sessions that shoot my heart rate up to running from Godzilla levels… and if I didn’t understand the process, I might avoid exercising altogether. But knowing the no pain, no gain rule, I have learned to just buckle down and face my lazy, sleep walking demons and do what needs doing to stay in shape. I even enjoy the exhaustion of pushing myself physically, once I’m into it.
So, yeah, I will drag myself back to the job at hand, and go through what must be the twelfth edit of the copy to date (with another twelve to go). Part of me would rather slash my wrists and be done with it… but my greater self just laughs off the desperation.
And here’s the punch line: Because there is a deadline… this all will soon pass. It has to…
That’s why deadlines are the writer’s best friend. Without them, there would be no logical end to any gig, and I can’t even imagine allowing this panic and sense of failure to last a second longer than it has to. The deadlines I set are reasonable, and based on my long experience of what is necessary to get the job done right. Sometimes, it can be overnight. Other times, with heavy-hitting big league clients, it’s six weeks. But the instant the job is sent off… I’m back to my normal fun-loving, embrace-the-world self.
Creativity is a harsh mistress… but for those of us who’ve chosen her, the grief (once understood) is worth it.