It happened no fewer than five times in the last week. The solutions to problems that had stumped me for months suddenly fell into my lap—clear as day.
The projects themselves had next to nothing in common. One was for a major university. The next, for a real estate disrupter. The third, for a popular payments technology. The fourth, for an edtech startup. And the fifth, for my very own copywriting agency: MarketSmiths.
And yet, with each new arrival I felt the same wave of joy wash over me that can only come from finally seeing that which has been under your nose all along. It’s like finding a lost twenty in your pocket—times a thousand.
Why does this happen? During creativity, what goes on in our brains that causes this sudden synthesis, this eureka moment?
I believe it’s a brain stew. You’ve thrown in potatoes, peppers, roast beef, onions, some seasoning. All the ingredients are in the pot—but it won’t be a proper meal for another 8 hours. That’s when the many separate elements transform into one cohesive entity.
Ideas are like that. They require time, care, and, most importantly, belief. Because, for so much of the journey, you seem to be going nowhere. Me? I despair. I fret. I pace. I question my worth.
But I also work. I write it one way and it’s lousy. Then I try it another way and it’s worse. I go for the headlines, then I go for the body copy. I outline and re-outline. I write a vomit draft. Nothing works. Nearly every project reaches this point of stagnation.
Then, invariably, at the eleventh hour, things fall into place—and the idea arrives. Like a carrot pulled clean from the ground: whole, healthy, and ready to eat, all the salient information is included and elegantly encoded such that its presence is felt, rather than announced. That’s creativity at its best.
It’s an electrifying moment that never gets old. Still, how do you survive this often painful and circuitous voyage? First: trust the process. And second: be unshakably convinced, deep down, that a solution exists. Like Roald Dahl said, “Those who do not believe in magic will never find it.”
Of course, it helps to have a guide who knows the way.
Need help locating your big idea? Get in touch.
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