Saying YES To Portfolio School

Source: bly.com

After my layoff (a blessing really) I secured a new well-paying copywriting position within a week of getting walking papers. Good deal, right? Ultimately, not so much. Say goodbye to well-paying new job. So, I'm officially thrust into Georgia's 8.6% unemployment statistic. What now?

Well... find another job. Find another job...find... another...job. Don't get me wrong, of course I have to work to meet life obligations-I can just no longer bear to be a seat warmer at a production-at-all-costs-quality-be-damned company. Getting a job as a copywriter requires talent (check-if I don't own it, who will), experience (check)... and, a kick-ass book; one borne from long days and nights spent learning new skills and honing them as a student of a good portfolio school. I have a portfolio. Without a good, well-rounded one, I'll always be an angrier-by-the-minuet seat warmer living on daydreams.


I want to create passionate, intriguing, thought-provoking, insanely humorous writings. I want to persuade people to that they need that new fangled sparkly new something. I want an Addy, a One Show award. While it's true that I am a copywriter-a passionate copywriter; I am also self-educated. Oh, I don't mean in the Color Purple sense; I have matriculated past year 12 of high school. 

Writing wasn't my first love. No, that came in the form of musical theater and dance. I wanted nothing more than to live and breathe the theatah-and maybe one day I'd write. At 18, after 11 years of dance and music lessons, I was off to performing arts college. After college, I did what all we theater folk do... practiced my craft. What's the saying? Those who CAN do... Those who CAN'T teach... and work at Gap, and wait tables, and teach at every Madame Lazonga School of Dance that will hire her... then we all get a "real" job.

I rediscovered my passion for writing while working at an ad agency in a totally non-creative roll-Admin Assistant. In fact, it was during a company-wide off-site meeting that I was quizzed about the newest agency addition--the new CCO (Chief Creative Officer). 

The exchange went something like this:
Her: Aren't you excited that Luke Sullivan is the new CCO?
Me: Who?
Her: What do you mean who?
Me: Crickets
Her: How do you NOT know who Luke Sullivan is? OMG! (Okay, this was 13 years ago, do she said Oh My God) He is only the GREATEST COPYWRITER EVER!
Me: Crickets
Me: Why is everyone drinking at 11 AM?

Suffice it to say, I quickly learned about Luke Sullivan and this community of creatives; Copywriters, Designers, Art Directors, Creative Directors, etc... It was a come-to-jesus kind of experience. I read and reread Hey Whipple, Squeeze This., Lukes famed book. I dog-eared my copy of Ogilvy On Advertising. I set out to learn; no soak up everything available to me. If I could have executed a Vulcan Mind Meld-trust me, I would have...

Thanks to Mad Men, you non-agency folks out there get a small sense of the glamour of agency life except...

A. You're more likely to see creatives in converse and hawaiian shirts than suit and tie.
B. No too many folks keep a stocked bar in their office anymore.
C. No one has an office anymore... Except the CFO...
D. No one starts in the mailroom and works their way up to Copywriter...

No one starts in the mailroom and works up to Copywriter...

I thought that if I made my rounds through the different departments-PR, Traffic, Account Management, Graphic Design; eventually I'd be welcomed into the Kingdom of Copywriters. Ask me how that worked out for me... Truthfully, I have had good success and come away with a versatile skill set... I've continuously jumped the education versus experience hurdles, each time they were set higher... now, I need a vault shaft to get over the next hurdle.

No one starts in the mailroom and works up to Copywriter... They go to portfolio school.


I've spent the last 3 years agonizing over going back to school. Taking on more student loan debt. Working part-time or not at all to attend a 2-year program... 3 years agonizing. And I was resolved to apply too, but I allowed myself, or the little person in me that still needs approval, to be talked out of it. Practical excuses bolstered my decision. You have to work and you can't do both. There are no guarantees your copywriting career will be any better off--you're already doing that... 3 years... Had I not succumbed, I would have graduated by now.

Getting Out of My Own Way

So, now that I'm unemployed, I think the forces of the multiverse, the Creator, I Am Who I Am; is trying to tell me something... Move @%&@, Get Out The Way.... Ok, God wouldn't use the B-word, but you get the point. 

Portfolio School.... Here I come!


Peace
~ Michelle Suzette

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