Somewhere In Between.

Note: And now for the third installment of my post on Prose Nylund’s first anniversary post. (Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here). I know it’s realllly late in coming, but I’ve actually been really busy, most of all with a career change. But now I’ve found my balance, so it’s back to blogging!

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About ten years ago, I received a block-shaped stub of a book via a Secret Santa exchange at a staff Christmas party.

It was called The Writer’s Block. 

I was ecstatic, of course, as it was an acknowledgment of and a contribution to my persona as The Writer (even though there was not much writing going on at all back then) and because I believed that it would be the “thing” that would finally deliver me from my slump. And it would.

Just not for another eight years.

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Oh, HELL Yes!

Maya Angelou & Langston Hughes just chillin’. And a little bit of illin’.

via awesomepeoplehangingouttogether

HELLS YEAH!

via bookshelf porn

Shitty-Ass Ads.*Updated with more ads!*

Or: visible proof of why I (probably) didn’t make it as an advertising copywriter.

I’ve made some vague references to my failed career on here; hopefully, I didn’t sound TOO bitter about it.  I’ll give myself credit for fighting the good fight, as I tried my hardest to remain in the industry, but I guess it was’t meant to be.

What I’ll miss the most though: Thirsty Thursdays/Fridays. At one agency in particular, they had cases and cases of wine and beer stacked in the kitchen at all times. CASES! That might explain things the next time you see an ad that makes you say to yourself: “WTF were they thinking?!”

Anyway, here are some highlights from my portfolio, not from my brief career, but from ad school, as it was when I graduated, circa 2005. Obviously, I did the writing in the following ads, but I also did the art direction, so that might explain things when you say to yourself: “WTF is up with that shitty-ass ad?” The funny thing is: I’d be lucky to be able to do such poor art direction today, as once I graduated, I no longer needed to know how to use the necessary programs, so I definitely lost what little mastery I had of them. And you wanna know how long ago that was? Yes, I just mentioned the year, but I gotta tell you anyway: one of the programs I used was Quark Xpress.

‘Nuff said.

Some of these didn’t scan very well, so I’ll only display two campaigns. Plus, I don’t want to torture y’all by showing more.  Once, during an interview, it took the creative director only 30 seconds of viewing my portfolio before he slammed it shut screaming: “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

True story*.

Click to enlarge – at your own risk.

Enjoy (or don’t) as I work on a Family-Day themed story. I now have a holiday category, as I have decided to write a story for each holiday. (Sorry for insulting your intelligence; I know that was pretty self-explanatory.) But much like the other two stories in there so far, it’s going to be written and published after the fact. Also, it’ll incorporate one of the exercises from The Writer’s Block, which I haven’t done in forever.

*not a true story.