What is the role of passion in copywriting?

Passionate copywriters have less problems at the office than their more pragmatic counterparts! (Wink, wink!)

This could well be a subject of a passionate debate! Do you have to have a passion for the work you do?

 I speak for myself when I say that work seems like play when it is a passion. I can work from 4 in the morning with a few breaks of course, till well into an early night. I tuck in early so that I can get up early.

I look forward to a Monday. Except that every day is a new Monday. That includes Saturdays and Sundays as well. I have no holidays and I’m not complaining. Am I earning a lot? Not at the moment. Not for the decade gone by that I have been working. 

I am told that the Beatles could buy themselves a swimming pool with every good piece of work. So, to answer your question, am I earning now? Heck, no! Nor do I pretend to be the Beatles. But when I do start earning, I won’t be complaining.

Some might be earning a lot without the passion. But even they have a passion: the desire to succeed. I read it somewhere, that to succeed, you need to want it like a drowning man’s desperate urge to breathe. So even the so-called passionless workers do in fact have a passion: to succeed.

And there’s one more interesting thing about those with passion: they don’t mind the work. They could work endlessly. Sometimes, the poor wretched souls die in penury; their work being appreciated only after their death. Some noted artists would come under this category.

This is not to say, they love working for free. Such is the intent of the desperately poor or the naïve. The fluency of these brilliant artists, for, indeed, every copywriter is an artist, cannot be mistaken for laziness. The mind is hungry and a hungry mind wants to be fed interesting tidbits of life to reuse sometime later.

To the tight-fisted agency, I say, don’t dismiss that mad man; his art keeps your dinner warm every night. 

Remember that every time you close your palms tightly around wads of notes inside your pocket.

Like someone said, and I’ll rephrase it: Pursue your passion and you will never have to work another day in your life.

What do you think? Does passion work for you or not? Write in your views in the space below.

Until the next,

Adieus!