Plus+

Advertising+Improvisation

Writing copy and performing improvisation are remarkably similar. They
both ask for suggestions for topics and stakes. They both have rules
which a player or writer must follow. Events and reasoning must follow
in a thematic order. Both have space and time constraints. There needs
to be a big finish.

Writing+Distance

There are limitless analogies for writing. Writing copy for a thirty
second television ad is akin to sprinting. After some sort of warm-up,
the writer blasts out of the writer's blocks and runs the 40-word dash
in under forty minutes. Novels are like marathons, putting one word in
front of the other, writing chapter after chapter, downing a cup of
fresh inspiration every so often, never stopping, wondering how you got
involved in such a grueling activity.

Writing+

Writers write, eh? (That's my Canadian coming out.) Writers strive for
poetry even when writing a short commercial:

Here is the message
Remember it forever
Do what I say now.

But there's no prose like promotional prose:

Gates Assisted Living (Pearly Gates Nursing Home) lies nestled in a
time-worn arroyo (in a dry riverbed) deep in the heart of the Sonoron
Desert (somewhere far out of town, where land was cheap). Once you
discover the diversity (snakes) of this unique climate (it's hot),
you'll know you are home (because you can't be trusted to live alone
anymore and you ain't living with your kids, that's for sure).