Creative Waste
Note: This blog is written from the perspective of a television writers’ assistant turned copywriter turned creative strategist who is now passionately teaching her fellow screenwriters about the world of copywriting and marketing.
‘Creative waste’-- it’s a problem!
Brilliant ideas are left unheard- lost at the bottom of the writers’ room hierarchy
Scripts go unread- sitting unopened in a showrunners inbox or in a ‘Drafts’ folder with a nervous finger forever hovering over ‘Send’
Dreams slowly fade into the ether of assistant-dome and are replaced with cynicism, complacency and debt
Bear with me as I process through the analogy that led me to fixate on this concept of creative waste and sent me running to write this blog.
Currently, I am working on rewriting some website copy for a pretty awesome sustainable brand that cares a lot about doing good for people and the environment. In preparation, I whipped out my handy dandy swipe file spreadsheet where I have a list of websites I like that have clear and/or clever copy:
Note: clear ALWAYS beats clever when it comes to copywriting, but if you can master clear AND clever, you are golden.
Another note: ‘swipe files’ is a term you should know as a copywriter. Essentially it is a collection of example copy you can refer to so you don’t start with a blank page. I have swipe files of sales pages, headlines, pricing structures, website copy etc from companies and copywriters I love. It’s kinda like how we track down scripts of our favorite shows to break down the structure and see what good writing looks like on the page.
Back to my analogy-- so one of the websites in my swipe files was the site for a company called Imperfect Foods. It is a solid example of an easy to navigate and CLEAR website. It focuses on the benefits for the customer, has one strong call to action etc etc…
So as I read more about Imperfect Foods, and food waste in general, I started to feel a pang in my gut-- this perfectly imperfect food deserves JUSTICE! It deserves to be valued, bought, consumed!
What makes the food ‘imperfect’ you ask? Is it contaminated? Expired? No!
Turns out, the food industry undervalues and turns away perfectly good food for silly reasons… just like the entertainment industry undervalues and turns away perfectly good writers for silly reasons!
Reasons food is rejected therefore leading to food waste:
There was a surplus
The item was discontinued
Cosmetic imperfection
Expiration is too close
Broken pieces (like the ends of pasta noodles broken or bags of chips crushed)
… Sound familiar?! Allow me to draw the parallels:
Reasons WAs/SAs/SCs are rejected therefore leading to creative waste:
There was a surplus of writers and very few staff writer positions
The show was cancelled- even though you were promised a staff writing job on season 2
The lack of diversity in most writers' rooms
You either haven’t worked for the showrunner for long enough to ask them to read your script, or you have been an assistant so long, they just don’t see you as a creative
Our spirits are broken, battered and bruised and we are left feeling small, unworthy and silenced, therefore we don’t advocate for ourselves
Maybe I am digging too deep into this analogy, comparing food waste to creative waste and basically calling myself an imperfect writer (gasp!) but there are just so many lessons to be learned here.
As a recovering perfectionist, even just the word ‘imperfect’ kind of gives me the heebie jeebies. I used to hide my scripts from the world until I deemed them perfect, which just led to complacency, little to no visibility, procrastination, and a slew of other mindset issues.
Copywriting helped me realize that writing will NEVER be perfect because ‘perfect’ is subjective. And sometimes the imperfect things are the most meaningful things… like this imperfect blog (that I am hesitant to post), or my totally imperfect challenge (that I almost didn’t run last month).
Waiting for perfection prevents action and, you guessed it, leads to creative waste. You must take action in order to succeed and accomplish your dreams!
Imperfect Food’s Mission: Eliminate food waste and build a better food system for everyone
My Mission: Eliminate creative waste and build a community of support that teaches writers to take agency over their dreams, their career and their lives. To create a system in which writers have the space to explore and use their voice, get paid what they are worth and feel respected in all stages of their career!
I’ll end this imperfect blog with a quote by Myles Munroe: "The wealthiest place in the world is the cemetery. There lie buried ideas that were not harnessed, bestselling books that were never written, songs that were not sung and companies that were never started. In the cemetery is buried the greatest treasure of untapped potential."
So go out and tap that potential. Save that next big idea from the landfill or the cemetery! We can’t afford any more creative waste around here!
