If your lifelong dream is to write Bible studies, craft devotional guides, or create fiction for today’s Christian woman, you may not ask this question. On the other hand, if you mainly write about cat litter, bed sheets, and communication software, it might come up every now and then.
Those last three topics probably weren’t what you had in mind when you breathlessly announced at your Bible study, “God is calling me to be … (dramatic pause) … a writer.” You probably imagined yourself crafting prose that would uplift souls, uproot injustice, and upgrade your credit rating. Copywriting, if you’re good at it, can do the last bit but not the first two.
For copywriters, the art and science of writing aren’t about ripping open the layers that guard your soul or introducing people to life-changing esoteric truths. It’s about moving products and selling services in order to make money for the people who hire you to write.
Let’s face the ugly truth, y’all. We’re hacks. (I’m reminded of Hyacinth Bucket saying to a journalist, “If I were the victim of gross indecency, you would have been round here quicker than a split infinitive. …Illiterate hack.”)
Recognizing that we’re hacks leads us back to the original question: Why am I writing this anyway? When translated from the original languages, that question means: Is my work worth anything to the world?
And so we come to the heart of the matter—Does my work matter? Do I matter?