The Purging of Bad Ideas
By Katie Earley, Copywriter
In a previous job, I was the marketing assistant at a non-profit and shared an office with the marketing director. Every time a new project came in, she would play with it for awhile and ask me for ideas. By sharing an office everyday we had developed a comfortable rapport, so I would not hesitate to throw out all of my absolute worst ideas. They were generally quite laughable and we would spend a good ten minutes laughing at the worst headlines and worst pictures that we could put together. Then somehow, out of the laughs, awkward pictures and horrible headlines, we would strike upon a good idea.
I was reminded of this process today by a post on Write to Done, and it’s something I often forget. When I think there are no good ideas and my head is just absolutely empty: write. Just keep writing. Once you get all of the bad ideas on paper, the good ones will follow.
