It's all in the head (and it's not what you are thinking!) Part 3

 

 It's all in the head (and it's not what you are thinking!) - Part 3

Triggers that helped me crank up my copy

 

Coaxing the Muse:

 Which brings me to a burning question, for which I beg to digress: what is the writer’s biggest fear? The absence of the Muse’s munificence, wouldn’t you agree?  

 And although I haven’t really worked in an office - my living room being my office - I can recollect occasions when I have in vain taken a break for the third cup of over-boiled tea, switched on the TV and watched with the disinterest of a tiger over an annoying flea, and then switched it off again. And as the deadline approaches and my  heart starts to palpitate, in utter desperation I break into a song, do a jig, holler instructions to an overworked maid, have a bath, and voila (phew, more like!), there it comes, with a B

BANG!

I scramble out of the bath muttering the words over and over again lest I forget, while all the while frantically searching for my pad and pencil to jot it down! Yes, has it happened to you, too? 

Or when you are exercising your vocal chords, singing your song a decibel louder than what is reasonable to the human ear when your teen hollers back to calm down as the radio isn’t going anywhere too soon? Yes? When all of a sudden, it comes right there as you add the turmeric powder to your gravy! Yes?

 It happens some of the time to me. More specifically, in my career - that spans a little less than a decade - I have been thus inspired only on two occasions.

This is not to suggest that you too will not be inspired by your Muse often? On the contrary, perhaps you could, even more so. But what a waste of time not to mention the lost opportunities, of not having exercised your creativity while you waited for your Muse?

All I am saying is this: do not depend on the Muse for inspiration. Coax her, woo her. Pick up that pen and begin thinking about the product you have neatly written across the paper. Stride up and down the room, read a book, watch TV for awhile, all the time thinking of the product with a pad by your side. Your Muse will not fail you. Eventually, you will get to her.

If you on the other hand want a spontaneous outpouring of your Muse, then you might just have to spend a long time waiting. At least that’s what happened to me. Of the 40 odd memorable headlines that I have written, I can recollect only two that came from out of the blue. Not that they were bad, and by no means can they be treated flippantly, but like I said, they are few and far between. If you can just think about the thirty-eight odd others, just imagine the lost opportunities I would have been faced with had I waited for the Muse to come to me.

To you, dear reader - if you want to make it big - I say, if she ain’t acquiescing to your proposal, run after her like the Devil was behind you, or forever be damned to ignominy, if hell might even want to take you. You are trapped either way: either the Devil or a life worse than Hell. Take your pick.

For what it’s worth, here are a couple of my favourites that need coaxing from the lot: 

If you are thinking what I am then you could do it to, if you are not lazy, that is!

As promised my two coaxed out headlines:

Love is Fickle; a diamond is forever

De Beers – For Love that lasts forever

And relatively easier was the following headline for the brand, Bryl:

God Created Eve, and the Devil, Bryl

I call this a case of Bulimia, when the Muse has to be spat out!   

These are examples of the times when nothing seems to be working for you. You have tried all the permutations, all the combinations, everything. You may even have thought that that particular product was jinxed and you sought help to unjinx it? Just kidding.

I remember a particular problem I was facing. How in the world can you rewrite a classic? Can you rewrite it at all? Should you? Is it ethical? And most importantly, are you going to be compared with the classic?

 I was stumped. I looked at the pad. In it I had scribbled the words, De Beers. It stared back at me, challenging me to rewrite the line.

I have a habit, a bad one if I may say so, of striding up and down the living room. So that’s what I did for two hours a day everyday even the weekends, in search for my Muse. All in vain!

I cannot today honestly recollect just how long it took me. It must have been pretty long, close to two weeks when I gave up and wrote the slogan back on the paper:

A diamond is forever

And then I thought: hang on a second. Shouldn’t that be love? That love is forever?

 And then an idea took germ. I then extended the thought. Love is not always forever; in fact, it very rarely is. That’s when it struck me and I fleshed out the idea. Here is what I wrote:

Love is Fickle; a Diamond is forever

De Beers – For Love that lasts forever

That day I learned a very important lesson: Never wait for the Muse. Invoke her whenever there is work to do, sometimes even when there is no work at all. You will be thrilled, your clients happy, and the best part of it all, your wallet will be loaded with moolah, sometimes enough for a life-time. Isn’t the effort then worth all the trouble – and for just two hours a day?  No? How about if I said, you could be well on your way to earning a seven-digit salary right here in India if you did what I did? Would that interest you?

Then read on, there’s more...

More on that in the next...