Creative Copywriter

So how did I become such a creative copywriter? Where did it all begin?

I’ll take you back to the very beginning.

The first substantial thing I can remember writing was written by me aged 10. Infact I began at 10 and only finished the project as an awkward boy of 14, who still looked just like a 10-year old. It was a Fighting Fantasy book. The interactive kind, in which you (the reader) are the leading character – if you want to drink the old wizard’s potion turn to page 163, if you’d rather dive deep into the perilous pit of burning decay then turn to page 11 – that kinda thing!

It involved meticulous planning and a great big handful of creativity. I mapped out the entire plot beforehand – literally by drawing a chain of huge A3-sized maps (they seemed huge at the time) with all the possible twists and turns of the story. I crafted the book from coloured card and paper. Cellotape was my secret ingredient in this mix. Then I filled it not only with colourful language and inventive storylines, but with elaborate hand-drawn pictures of dragons, monsters, goblins and warriors. A lot of early teenage freetime and sweat went into it. It was named ‘The Forest of Fear’.

This fantasy book captured a growing adolescent’s 4-year long voyage of thought and literary development, on colourful paper…and then my brother lost it a year later! So that was the end of that.

You could say this was the first stepping stone on my path to becoming a creative copwriter.

What was school like for me? Did I always dream of becoming a creative copywriter?

The answer to this, frankly, is no. The thought of becoming a creative copywriter never occurred to me at that stage of my life. Probably because I didn’t know what one was. This isn’t to say that I lacked creativity however; I oozed creativity from every orifice… My top 2 subjects were Art and English Language. I consistently impressed teachers with my uniquely creative writing style. The secret to my success at that age was pretty much just throwing in really short sentences all over the place…

‘Moving. Moving slowly. One hand grips the bark, and then the next. The sloth moves along his sturdy branch, inch by inch. Climbing slowly. Gradually. Peacefully.’

This isn’t an extract, but I remember writing something like this. I thought it was very inventive at the time.

As a boy of that age who likes to write, you have dreams of becoming a famous author or maybe a Clark Kent-style journalist. Little did I know that these days were actually the making of a highly creative copywriter.

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