Copywriting and Covid-19: How to keep your mojo working

Being home is great. You don’t have to pay someone to prepare your food or cut your hair, it’s where your bed lives and, unless your flatshare is especially grim, you can use the bathroom in complete comfort. Who would ever leave? Assuming you aren’t suffering from the ongoing housing crisis (two crises in one blog, grab the mop as your cup runneth over), the main difficulties of isolation are lack of human contact and the stagnancy that arises when working exclusively from home. As copywriters, creativity pays the bills and though necessity is the mother of invention, it can also lead to poor work practices that hinder quality writing. But, fear not, the Copywriter Collective is here to restore your mojo:

Routine

Before the crisis started, the routine was important for reducing the number of choices we had to make each day, simplifying the big decisions. Now routine has become a way to recapture normality and stay motivated. It’s simple, effective and prevents you from spending all day in your underwear watching Netflix.

Take breaks

This one’s a bit high school but if it works for hormone-ravaged teens, it should work on copywriters who have been beaten down over the years by unreasonable client demands.  I’m not going to prescribe a time to take breaks, I’m writing a copywriting blog, not applying for adoption. Discover what works for you.

Keep on trucking

It may sound a little bit grandiose but writing is a craft and should be treated accordingly. You’ve got to do it often and accept the good with the bad. Take Paul McCartney as a starting point, if you write enough versions of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, you’re bound to eventually knock out a ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. Paul isn’t ashamed of his bad stuff and nor should you be, just keep writing.

Fight the fatigue

Long-time copywriters are aware that you aren’t exclusively writing grand copy that pierces the very soul of the human condition, and that’s okay. You love writing but after getting 12 pages deep into T&Cs you expect no sane person to ever read, you are little more than a husk. Relight the fire by experimenting with different styles of writing; iambic pentameter, a stream of consciousness, whatever gets you there. That way you can go back to the T&Cs with a new perspective.

A novel idea

Copywriters are egotistical. As a breed, we have vastly inflated senses of our own talent. For this reason, each of us believes we are just 70,000 words away from writing a Pulitzer winning novel. Quarantine has given us an abundance of free time meaning we are able to invest our hours fulfilling the copywriter dream. That is, getting 8 pages into our debut novel, before scrapping it and deciding to forgo literati membership.

The sweet sound of productivity

Even those who follow these tips to the letter aren’t immune from getting stuck in a funk. For this, there is only one remedy and that is brewing yourself a Vantablack coffee and putting on your favourite album, the one which makes you feel like the most creative and interesting person in the room. Once the heart palpitations begin, the copy should closely follow.

Have you lost that loving feeling?

Most of all remember why you became a copywriter in the first place, the feeling of creating something that you’re proud of and the validation of convincing someone to read to the bottom of the T&Cs. Of course, the coronavirus crisis has made it easy to become demotivated, but remember your planet needs you to craft the copy that makes isolation just that tiny bit less tedious.

Continue reading more from Connor: Crisis, communication and COVID-19

About the Author

A Londoner driven to Rotterdam by a quarter-life crisis, Brexit and despair. My first gig was writing cover letters in exchange for beer. Now I mainly trade creativity for cash, currently for HLO Branding. A passionate non-cyclist and Al Green enthusiast.