How do you confront life after advertising ? or the act of leaving a lengthy career in the commercial creative arts? Many, like former DDB creative director Lucia Blinn, “the Dorothy Park of Michigan Avenue,” find themselves “transitioning” into another phase of the creative life, as she relates below.
Blinn celebrates her new life with a new book of wise and witty poems, “Lucia — Passing for Normal,” published by First Flight Books, Bruce and Lorelei Bendinger’s new publishing company.
How I Got to This Page, by Lucia Blinn
In the mid-eighties, after a 30-year skirmish writing advertising copy for Chicago and New York agencies, it was time for an exit strategy.
I’d work five more years, stanch the spending and stash a buffer of cash for the future.
My innards, having had all the fiesta they could metabolize, had their own timetable. Two-and-a-half years into the plan, I began cleaning out my desk.
The day after the Agency lost two major accounts (not my fault, I swear, but it was a sign), with a mystical hand at my back urging me forward, I walked into the corner office and tearfully resigned.
The creative chief issued a memo saying I was retiring to write “articles, fiction, maybe poetry.”
Poetry? It was news to me.
Looking back though, perhaps decades of writing columns of TV copy were an apprenticeship.
I declined a Bon Voyage party; I was too spooked to celebrate. Who would I be if not who I had been?
What would I do all day? What would I wear?
What about lunch? What about the paycheck?
Cicero answered the last one. “Man does not realize what an income thrift is.” And from me to me: S.O.O.S. (Stay Out Of Stores.)
Day One at home. You have to confront the silence, a friend warned. But this was awful. (See my poem “This Is Not Working.”)
I got my head out of the fridge long enough to answer the phone.
From serendipity herself, my first freelance client.
Advertising without committees and competition, yea!
I was finally doing what the account people, infuriatingly, always said to do: Have fun with it.
A poetry weekend with two Santa Fe writers led to workshops with writing guru Natalie Goldberg, a hands-on session with novelist Dorothy Allison, three aborted writing classes, and a women’s group who met weekly for cinnamon rolls and timed writing.
The freelance business evaporated just as my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer; and the next two years’ focus was caretaking, dealing with the shrouded one, and capturing the journey on paper.
Much of that appears in “Leaving Marty, the story of a marriage.” It’s unpublished as yet, as is its sequel, but look at what has been.
There is a goddess. Publisher Lorelei Bendinger heard me read my poems at a party, told Bruce, her partner/husband and former adman, about them, and here we are, “Passing For Normal” is only $15 (including shipping) and can be purchased via www.firstflightbooks.com, or phoning First Flight Books at 773/871-1179.
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First Flight Books, the Bendinger’s new publishing company Bruce, a former major agency creative director, and Lorelei Bendinger are known as publishers of books on advertising and marketing through their Copy Workshop. Their new venture, First Flight Books specializes in helping first-time authors share their gifts. Coming up are several books including a humorous take on job-hunting, “The Seven Stages of Successful Unemployment: From Hell to Hallelujah” by Dallas marketing consultant and motivational speaker Steve Zipkoff. Also: “How to Save American Manufacturing,” written by Portland, Ore. consultant Michael Collins. For the most part, First Flight produces books for consultants who want a book as part of their marketing program. The Bendingers realized the power of books to help marketers when one of their authors went from $500 a day to $5000 a day in less than a year with one of their books as the key marketing tool. For more information, see www.firstflightbooks.com. |
