I’ve been doing a lot of carpentry this summer, and I find myself pleased by the unforgiving nature of working with a saw. Once you make a cut you can’t take it back. Master carpenters who do the same thing over and over again develop an instinctive eye and a steady hand for sure, accurate cuts. But a tinkering hobbyist doesn’t get enough practice, so mistakes are going to happen. And it’s a milestone in the tyro’s journey when you decide you will toss away the maimed piece (perhaps an expensive piece of stock you’ve worked on for several hours) and start over rather than live with your mistake.
Copywriting used to be something like this, early in my career. I was too early for computers but too late to have access to a steno pool where my manuscript would be retyped. A copy deck was expected to look good as well as read well when submitted—no typos, strikeovers or white-out permitted. And there were moments, many of them, when you’d take the page out of your typewriter, read it over, and realized you should have used a different word or sentence order. And you’d have the choice of living with something that possibly could have been better—or typing the whole page over again.
There’s no doubt computers make for better copy. Not only can you delete your mistakes, you can try all kinds of what-ifs without penalty before hitting the “print” button. But I miss the finality…the recognition that once you type a word, there’s no going back without paying a price. In fact, that may have been what separated a good junior copywriter from a hack—the willingness to not only learn from your mistakes, but pay for them in extra time at the keyboard.