What does a copywriter actually do? Write copy, of course. They produce content for clients, sit within the creative team, and try to build campaigns out of content ideas. It's a long, gruelling road.

The Copywriter Does the Polishing, the Designer Gets the Shine

However hard you work, you'll never get thanked in the office the way a designer does. So if you're hoping to "shine" in the ego-clashing world of social media, accept that the designer will always be a step ahead of you. After all, they're the one who knows how to apply a gradient or an effect. It's only natural the applause goes to them while they're polishing your content. So keep your expectations low and bury yourself back in the keyboard. It's easier that way.

When It Comes to Writing Content, Every Deadline Is Early

It usually goes like this: "We need to post something right now." "OK, for what?" "For client X, about topic Y." While you're still opening the email trying to understand the brief, someone calls out from across the room: "Is it ready?" If the speed of light were a person, it would have chosen copywriting as a career. You can't utter a cursed sentence like "I need time to think" — not while the whole team is asking "Is it ready?" in unison anyway, which makes thinking rather difficult. Best to bury yourself back in the keyboard.

"I Complain to No One, I Weep for My Own Fate"

A copywriter has to be organised. If you're not, next month's entire content calendar piles up into a mountain in front of you — because all month long you never once kept the promise you made yourself: "today I'll just work on the calendar." Even when you are organised, you know the outcome won't change, so in the last days of the month you take refuge in excuses like "leave me alone, I'm in hyperactive mode, I can't gather my thoughts, I think I've run out of energy." Naturally, no one buys it. They show you sympathy anyway, because we're a team. In the worst case, your moodiness gets passed on to the next copywriter. But alas, their situation is no different from yours. The upshot: you're glued to the keyboard.

The Ctrl+V and Ctrl+C Problem

And, the finale. The calendars go off for approval, and you try to manage a heavy stream of emails without bumping into anything, without mixing up the thread, and, of course, without typing "psot" instead of "post" the way I so often do. By this point your fingers have evolved. You know that somewhere between Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V you have a life, but that no amount of hitting F5 will "refresh" it for a while yet. The book you never got round to writing haunts your dreams, and you're dragged into a whirlpool of guilt for still not having read Emrah Serbes. There's only one way to forget the guilt: you glue yourself back to the keyboard.

Go On, Take a Day Off for Once

Bonus: the dear founder you've been messaging privately, moaning "I'm done, I'm burnt out, I can't keep up, this is too much," walks into the office one day with a halo over their head and says one simple sentence: "You've been working too hard, take a bit of a rest." That's the bonus. You rush home — no, wait, to the hairdresser's first — with words in your pocket and on your mind. The moment you look into that brightly lit salon mirror, you understand exactly why you earned this "bonus."