SLOW BURN MARKETING
  • Home
  • Portfolio
    • Branding
    • Audio / Video
    • Print
    • Web
    • Collateral Etc.
  • About
    • Blaine Parker
    • Honey Parker
    • Testimonials
  • Services
    • Do You Fit?
  • Stuff
    • Speaking
    • Books
    • Newsletter
  • Story Lab
  • Contact

WORDS GOOD: Spewing Until It's Special

7/27/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
SPEWING UNTIL IT'S SPECIAL 


You have heard of William Faulkner. You also don’t know why. Guaranteed.

(If I’m wrong, send me an email and tell me to stuff it. I will apologize.)

I once had a college course on American literature that assigned Faulkner’s masterpiece, The Sound And The Fury. (It’s a title which sounds great, just by the way. It’s big and exciting. Inside the book, not so much.)

For that course, I had to fake my way through the assignments related to the book because my 19-year-old brain could not penetrate the gentleman’s prose. Please know that I discredit myself and not the book.


William Faulkner is indisputably one of America’s greats.
The author of such acclaimed novels as the forementioned The Sound and the Fury, not to mention As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner was also a Hollywood screenwriter.

Faulkner’s screen credits include To Have And Have Not, The Big Sleep, and (for all you fans of Barton Fink) the Wallace Beery wrestling picture, Flesh.

Clearly, Faulkner was a pro and not a snob about literary merit. He wrote detective movies and wrestling pictures.


In other words, he might as well have written advertising.

The only person I know whom I’m certain has read William Faulkner is a friend from Faulkner’s home state of Mississippi. He’s a former advertising copywriter who went on to Saturday Night Live, followed by big Hollywood screenwriting gigs. He is one of those people who can bend words to his will.

But of all his grand credits, my personal favorite is his big win in the Faux Faulkner Contest, sponsored by Yoknapatawpha Press and the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

His winning entry?


William Faulkner’s long lost script for the Three Stooges, entitled “As I Lay Kvetching.”

But I digress. The point of this screed is about writing as the pained writer. You find yourself having to write, albeit reluctantly.

There’s also a good chance that what you have to write is going to be less than a page long.

And the task makes you want to jab out your own eyes with a pair of steely sharp implements from the Department Of Pointy Tools at Home Depot.

I can virtually guarantee that the reason why you experience such a self-mutilatory Oedipal reflex is this:


You’re working too hard at dreading the task and not working hard enough at just doing it.

Here’s where Mr. Faulkner comes in. When speaking to the great American literary critic and editor Malcolm Cowley, Faulkner said:

“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.”

I would go so far as to say that it’s the only way you can get anything written.

And for our purposes here in Words Good, we’re not asking you to write earth-shaking, mind-bending, critic-applauded literary prose. We’re just talking about writing a single page, double spaced.


But don’t mistake that single page for the place you stop writing.

To get to that single page, you’ll find it much easier to write three pages.

Or more.

It’s much easier to get it down when you write without boundaries.

Writing a single page is imposing a boundary.

Writing several pages that can later be cut down to a single page is writing on the open range.


Write! Write! Scribble and scratch! Blather and babble blithery boo!

Give yourself permission to spew freely with as much of el vómito as you can muster, and you will be surprised.

You will find yourself with a mountain of mishegas that contains a single page of good stuff once you’ve shoveled away the garbage.

No good writing falls onto the page fully formed as if Athena from the forehead of Zeus. (Look it up.)


Good writing is a storm of bad writing that is tamed into submission.

The junk is swept away until only the goodness remains.

And if you’re trying to write only one page, first writing three pages without boundaries will speed up your writing and give you better ideas than you ever imagined. 

Sit. Write. Be free. 
Cheers,

Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in Park City


LIGHTNING BRANDING ON AMAZON
The Kindle edition of our new book is now available at Amazon for the bargain price of $19.95.
 
For details about our new Lightning Branding courses, both do-it-yourself and we-do-it-with-you editions, click here. (There's even a video of us!)
0 Comments

How Much Does It Matter, And Is It Costing You?

7/20/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
0 Comments

Hello, WORDS GOOD!

7/16/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Blaine Parker is prone to ranting about any and all things related to brand. In many ways, he is a professional curmudgeon. While there is no known vaccine for this, the condition is also not contagious. Unless you choose it to be so. 

    Archives

    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015

    Categories

    All
    Abe Lincoln
    Advertising
    Advertising As Art
    Ad Writing
    Amazon
    Apathy
    Art And Advertising
    Attack Ads
    Authenticity
    Beat Bobby Flay
    Besotted
    Best Ads Of 2017
    Big Ideas
    Billboards
    Bobby Flay
    Book Marketing
    Brand Advertising
    Branding
    Branding Book
    Branding Santa Claus
    Brand Names
    Bud Light
    Budwieser
    Burger King
    Burger King Advertising
    Burning Man
    Burning Questions
    Business Book
    Buy Now
    Car Advertising
    Carefu;-ish
    Careful-ish
    Casablanca
    Christmas
    Commercials
    Commitment
    Communication
    Content
    Core Customer
    Corny
    Corporate Culture
    CoupleCo
    Couplepreneurs
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Crazy Ivan
    Creativity
    Creativity Over Message
    Cult Brands
    Customers
    David Ogilvy
    Dick Orkin
    Diisruptive
    Down Market
    Dr Sam's Eye Care
    Effectivness
    Electronics
    Entrenched
    Exceeding Expectaion
    Facebook Advertising
    Feeling
    Focus
    Focus Grouping
    Fonts
    Food
    Fraud
    Gary Vaynerchuk
    Hair Club For Men
    Hanukkah
    Holidays
    Hotels
    Hugo Boss
    Hurricane Relief
    Ideas
    Influence
    Inspiration
    Internet Radio
    Jeep
    Jerry Lewis
    Johnnie Walker
    Jungles
    Krylon Spray Paint
    Lawyers
    Lightning Branding
    Logos
    Lulu Lemon
    Mackerel
    Make Customers Care
    Marketing
    Masks
    Meaning
    Media
    Medical Tourism
    Membership
    Me Too
    Millennials
    Milton Glaser
    Must See TV
    Napa
    Nastalgia
    New Clients
    New Skills
    New Years
    Nicaragua
    Niche Brands
    Offers
    Ogilvy On Advertising
    Outdoor
    Pasta
    Patriotism
    Pen & Paper
    Personal Brand
    Pizza
    Podcasts
    Poetry
    Point Of Purchase
    Political Advertising
    Political Correctness
    Price Advertising
    Pringles
    Procrastination
    Product Experience
    Publicity Stunts
    Punctuation
    Puppy Monkey Baby
    Radio
    Reader Question
    Reality TV
    Relationship Marketing
    Repeat Customers
    Research
    Rhode Island Tourism
    Road Trip
    Romance
    Rosser Reeves
    Sailing
    Sales Staff Writing Radio
    SEO
    Small Business
    Small Business Branding
    SnapChat
    Social Media
    Social Media Marketing
    State Farm
    Story
    Struggling
    Subaru
    Super
    Superbowl
    Super Bowl Ads
    Sushi
    Sy Sperlling
    Taglines
    Thanksgiving
    The Big Short
    Trademarks
    USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
    Vail
    Velcro
    Vernacular
    Vocabulary
    Wine
    Words Good
    Writing
    Writing Advertising
    Zeitgeist

    RSS Feed

OFFERING:
Branding & Marketing
Speaking
Books
Newsletter


INFO:
Services Breakdown
​
Clients
About
Testimonials
Contact
STORY LAB
Picture
​
​
© Copyright 2020 Slow Burn Marketing LLC
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Picture
  • Home
  • Portfolio
    • Branding
    • Audio / Video
    • Print
    • Web
    • Collateral Etc.
  • About
    • Blaine Parker
    • Honey Parker
    • Testimonials
  • Services
    • Do You Fit?
  • Stuff
    • Speaking
    • Books
    • Newsletter
  • Story Lab
  • Contact