So I’m sitting in my studio. And I’m staring at a blank page, which, let me tell you, is a different kind of blank page than the ones I’m used to.
Because here’s the thing, man. I’ve written books. I’ve written books about marketing. Books where the words do a job. Words like funnel and leverage and optimise. Words that get in, do the work, and get out. Words that don’t have feelings, because they don’t need feelings. They have metrics.
And now I’m trying to write something else. Something that isn’t about selling anything. Something that’s… I don’t know. Deeper? That sounds pretentious. I hate that word. Deeper. Like I’m excavating my soul with a backhoe. But it’s the closest word I’ve got, and that’s the problem, because the closest word isn’t good enough anymore.
I know words. I’ve been doing this a long time. I know how to string them together. But these words I’m reaching for now… they’re in a different drawer. A drawer I haven’t opened in a while. Maybe a drawer I didn’t even know I had.
I find myself sitting there, hand hovering over the keyboard, waiting for a word to show up. Not the right word. The true one. And there’s a difference, man. There’s a big difference.
The right word sells a book. The true word costs you something.
And I’m digging around in there, in the dark, feeling for something that conveys feeling, which is hilarious, because I spent thirty years learning how to not feel things when performing. You feel them, sure, but you package them. You make them funny. You make them land. You don’t just… leave them open. Open to interpretation. What does that even mean? It means you don’t control it. It means the reader brings their own baggage to the word and suddenly the word isn’t yours anymore.
That’s terrifying, by the way. For a guy who built a career on controlling a training room, handing over a word and saying “here, you decide what it means” is like handing a stranger your car keys and hoping they don’t drive it into a lake.
But the marketing words don’t do that. Marketing words are closed systems. Conversion. Nothing to interpret there. Either they converted or they didn’t. Nobody’s crying over conversion.
But this new stuff. This new book. It’s all interpretation. It’s all feeling. It’s all… heavy.
And I keep catching myself trying to sneak the old words in. Like a security blanket. I’ll write a sentence and there’s a strategy in there, or an audience, and I’m like, get out of here, man, you don’t belong here. This isn’t a webinar. This is… whatever this is.
I don’t know what this is yet. Not fully. I have directions. I have vistas to explore. That’s the other thing. With the marketing books, I knew what they were before I wrote them. Outline. Chapters. Done. This one, I’m writing it to find out what it is. Which is a stupid way to work and also the only way to work on something like this.
So I sit in the office. Ambient soundtrack. Coffee. I reach in. I find a word. I hold it up to the light. Sometimes it’s the wrong word. Sometimes it’s the right word. And every once in a while, I find a true one, and I put it down on the page, and I sit back, and I go…
…huh.
That’s it. That’s the whole feeling. Huh.
And then I gotta do it again tomorrow. With another word. In the dark. In the drawer.
Heavy, man. It’s heavy.
But also I’ve got other problems, which is that the words aren’t coming to me in here anymore. I’ve squeezed this studio dry. I’ve been sitting in this chair talking into a microphone and staring at a screen for so long that I forgot there’s a whole world out there that doesn’t run on wifi.
And this new book, this one that isn’t about marketing, this one I keep reaching into the dark for… it doesn’t live in here. That’s the thing I’m figuring out. You can’t write about being a person from inside a studio. Well, you can. I’ve done it. But this one needs input, man. It needs data, and not the kind I can pull up on a dashboard.
So I’ve gotta go outside.
I know. I know. Take a breath. Andy, out in the world. Among the civilians. The people. The vibes.
And it’s weird, because I spent years and years in rooms with strangers, and now I gotta go be in rooms with strangers again but not for the usual stuff. Not for the tight five minutes. Not to win the room. Just to… be in the room. Observe it. Let it wash over me. Which, for a guy like me, is basically a horror movie.
But the book needs it. The book needs the real world. Classic reality. The thing that happens when you put the phone down and there’s just… a guy at a counter making a sandwich and he’s got a whole thing going on. He’s got a rhythm. He’s got a story. And a month ago I would’ve walked past him. Now I’m like… huh. That’s a chapter. That’s a feeling. That’s a word I don’t have yet.
So I’m taking photos. Me. Taking photos. Like a tourist in my own life. My phone’s full of pictures of doorways and old signs and a dog tied up outside a laundromat and I don’t know why I took half of them but something in me said that. That’s something. And I don’t know what it is yet. That’s the whole point. But it’s something.
The vibe thing is real though. You gotta feel the vibes. I know how that sounds. Fifteen years ago I would’ve made fun of me for saying it. But there’s a frequency out there in the world, in a diner at 3pm, in a park bench, in the way light hits a car park, and if you’re locked in a studio/office you’re not tuned to it. You’re tuned to the garage. Which is fine for marketing books. Marketing books don’t need a parking lot at golden hour.
This one does.
So it’s a new space. Creatively. And I don’t mean that in the corporate retreat way, like let’s circle back and ideate. I mean it’s literally a new space. It’s outside. It’s got weather. It’s got smells. It’s got people who don’t know who I am and don’t care, which is honestly the most freeing thing in the world if you let it be.
And I’m inhabiting it like a guy learning a new neighborhood. Which coffee shop is mine now? Which guy at which counter is gonna become a regular fixture? Where do I sit to watch the thing I’m trying to write about? It’s like method acting, except the role is being awake.
Here’s the deal though. The studio was/is safe. The studio had a door I could close. Out there, you can’t close the door. Out there, stuff happens to you. Real stuff. The kind that changes the sentence you were gonna write. And I don’t fully know how to do that. I don’t fully know how to let the world in without, you know… letting the world in. That’s the tension.
But the words are out there. I know they are. They’re sitting on a bench somewhere. They’re in the way a stranger says hey like they mean it. They’re in a photo I haven’t taken yet.
So I’m going out. Again. Today. Tomorrow. I’ll take the photos. I’ll feel the vibes. I’ll sit somewhere and just be a guy for an hour and see what lands.
And then I’ll come back to the studio.
But I’ll have something to write down.
Heavy, man. But a different kind of heavy. Lighter heavy. If that makes any sense.
It doesn’t.
Anyway.
I’ll be out there. If you see a guy taking a picture of a parking meter like it owes him money… that’s me. Say hi. Or don’t. I’m working.
If you’ve made it this far. Thanks. That was an outporing. A heavy update.
If you’re looking for marketing advice and guidance, my blog Digital Marketing for Creatives is packed full of free information. My goal, my plan, my mission is to fill this world with more successful creatives. We need that art. We need those insights. So pop on over, I’d love to see you there.
