I hate SCABs.

I hate SCABs. I find it really difficult to think about a prompting topic to talk about. Even then, I don’t know how to start them once I’ve got one. So I thought I would give it some thought and preamble to myself in my room, then just write one. Unedited word vomit in one hour, just spewing straight from my consciousness, I’ll pause before every word and consider the next one however. I’ll also try not to get distracted by the football on the telly. However, Harry Maguire is a flop and this should be publicly noted. I digress. 

Why have I got this problem? I’m meant to be a Copywriter, I know full well witty one-liners and silly word plays aren’t enough won’t cut it, but every bit of writing I do for these feels like a ‘death sentence’. ( I missed out an ‘and’ there and thinking about it the apostrophes make the joke too obvious).

Are there any not-that-good-at-writing Copywriters out there? Is it enough in this industry to just be an ideas man and then scan the thesaurus for some inspiration then copy and paste? Or rely on the rhyming dictionary and shoehorn that in somewhere? I can’t wait for the algorithms to come in and take my future job. 

I think it is due to the lack of structure and rules, writing about anything means writing about nothing at all in particular, a paradox of choice, it is overwhelming. I spend 10 minutes in the cereal aisle deciding between Cinnamon Grahams (which are now called ‘Curiously Cinnamon’, it doesn’t even make sense – Why has the name changed? Why is Graham not good enough? Why is my childhood invalid? What consultant suggested this? Why has marketing and advertising ruined my life?) and Morrisons’ own-brand Bran Flakes (I went with the Bran Flakes (I don’t know if this should be capitals or not, is it a proper noun, am I a hack of a writer?) (I also don’t know if you can have bracketed sentences within a bracketed sentence (I hope Caz doesn’t read this))) because I need to regulate my regularity but there was still the ‘with raisins’ option which caused further debilitation, the other option, the Grahams that reinvented themselves with mystique and pretension, was too much to bear). 

Point is, rules create focus, rules let you know what you can and can’t do, where you can and can’t go. Which I hadn’t fully considered before doing these. Maybe I need to start giving myself some rules.

Writing about nothing at all is scary, it’s peering into a bleak unknown and not knowing where you’re going, and if where you land after hitting 500 words is even a good place. It’s a fear of failure that kills your motor. Best to cut the breaks and push the pedal down, bobble-headed car dog, head-banging away. 

I often think one of the interesting things about this school and subject is that all the work is shared and presented among us, there’s nowhere to hide, you’re judged by your peers and that’s a really potentially shame-inducing scenario if you crash and burn. I don’t really know if anyone reads the SCABs but I do know that they look at my work on a Friday and that’s a damn good motivator. The rule of the mob.

Jesus, nothing is off-limits from marketing and advertising, not bobble-headed car dogs nor Cinnamon Grahams.