If I weren't a writer, I think I might have thrown myself more enthusiastically into advertising. But, it's difficult to imagine being a diligent copywriter. It would be quite exasperating for me.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Copywriting probably did make me a commercial writer. Nobody wants to read advertising copy, so you have to keep it punchy; you almost have trick them into reading it. You have to make every sentence work.
I write literary, not commercial, fiction - or so I've been told by my publishers who are proud I write literary fiction but secretly wish I wrote commercial.
I didn't think being a writer was a fancy thing. It was a job like any other job, except apparently you could do it at home.
A decade in advertising exposed me to plenty of schemers and backstabbers. But honestly, advertising is wonderful training for fiction. Writing novels is much easier if you've ever tried to write a billboard.
I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.
Advertising was only meant to be a very small part of my life. I had intended that I would work extensively in journalism for about five or six years and then I'd become a writer.
I take a certain pride in having maintained a reputation for fast copy throughout my newspaper career. Fast-breaking stories left my typewriter in a hurry. Not great literature, perhaps, but fast, and usually accurate.
I've carved out a career for myself really as a writer.
By 1961, when I got my first copywriting job, 'my kind' were suddenly in demand. The creative revolution had begun. Advertising had turned into a business dominated by young, funny, Jewish copywriters and tough, sometimes violent, Greek and Italian art directors.
I've devoted a lot of my time and effort during the past few years to developing my advertising copywriting business to the point of where I can support my family and don't have to depend on writing fiction for my income.