Almost 40 very short sentences about copywriting
Copywriting is knowing who to ignore.
It’s never letting any word seduce you.
It’s the fear of the predictable.
It’s the physics of desire.
Copywriting rarely begins at the beginning.
And ends somewhere you don’t see.
Copywriting is rifling pockets.
It is snuffling for treasure.
Copywriting is a microscope strapped to a telescope.
It’s getting lost on purpose.
It’s curiosity, weaponised.
(Copywriting is a bad way to get rich.)
(And copywriting for awards is like joining the fire brigade for the poles.)
Copywriting is a clock’s tick in an expensive car.
It’s a gorilla with drumsticks.
Copywriting is learning before you speak.
Self-indulgence does to copywriting what salt does to slugs.
(And ego in your copy is as off-putting as a coupon in a sonnet.)
Copywriting should only be defended once.
Copywriting is pathological truth telling.
It is witch-dunking for your words.
Copywriting is scrunched up paper.
(Copywriting is unscrunching.)
Copywriting is wiggly red lines
Copywriting is
pauses.
Copywriting is knowing which word you can depend on. (There’s usually only one.)
Copywriting is putting the sky in a matchbox.
Copywriting is selling straw to little pigs.
Copywriting is telling a story in the space between two blinks.
Copywriting is an endless process briefly interrupted by print deadlines.
Copywriting is beauty with its work boots on.
Copywriting is calligraphy on a runaway train.
Copywriting has just two gears — searching for an idea and searching for a better one.
Copywriting only ever comes from copywriters,
never from the people who say anyone can write.
Copywriters prefer rejections to suggestions.
Copywriters are easily bored.
Copywriters find it easier to cut a page than a word.
Copywriting loses someone at every word.
Copywriting is using an ellipsis when you don’t know how to write the ending…
Andrew Boulton teaches Creative Advertising at the University of Lincoln.
