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Finding your path through creativity with Ste Clarke
42 Plays1 year ago
A question we always like to ask when talking to guests as a part of our 'Live Action Networking' is 'how did you find yourself working in Digital Marketing?'. The answer Ste Clarke (the Comma Chameleon) gave us was quite a surprise!
So what was his answer? You'll have to listen to find out!
Find Ste on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ste-clarke-the-word-nerd/
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Transcript
Introduction: Networking & Communication
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, you're back at the Untitled SEO podcast with me, your host, Andrew Laws. Now, this is series two of the Untitled podcast and this is all about LAN. Not, oh my God, I don't actually know what the original version of LAN means, but it's like networky stuff. So this is live action networking.
Building Relationships through Interviews
00:00:19
Speaker
I realized many years ago in SEO in the creative industries that we're not very good at talking to people.
00:00:26
Speaker
I mean, we're kind of okay to a certain extent, but we don't really get to know each other that well. If you see somebody who's in the creative industry in a room for the networkers, they're either speaking to the other creative people or possibly looking a bit shy sometimes. So the whole point of this series is to get people I don't massively know well and get to know them live on a podcast recording. So to that end, I have with me today, Steve Clark. Steve, do you want to say hello?
Guest Introduction & Humor
00:00:56
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me on here, Andrew. Nice to be here. I think I'm going to have to address the elephant in the room. Steve has Covid, bless him. Yeah, I apologize for this sexy voice. It's better than it was two days ago. I sounded like Barry White on 60 Mile Bro a day. And
Journey from Taxi Driver to Writer
00:01:16
Speaker
I do apologize, everybody. I'm trying to remember, am I right in thinking you're a musician? Did I just imagine that?
00:01:23
Speaker
Now you can imagine that, but please feel free to do that. That really makes me feel more sexy than I actually am, so please carry on. I've played in loads of bands and vocalists that are like, I've got a cold, quit, record vocals. Wow, you sound brilliant. I've got an extensive vinyl collection, maybe that's where the music thing's coming.
00:01:43
Speaker
It could be, but let's say this is the whole point of the live action networking. It's kind of getting to know you. So I do know a little bit about you because all the guests on here do sign a kind of a release form, which kind of helps me get to know them a little bit. And I'm going to start with the same question I ask everybody. Did you deliberately move into the creative stroke digital marketing world, or was it a choice that was thrust upon you?
00:02:09
Speaker
It was a bit of both, really. I've been a professional writer for about six years now. Prior to that, I was a taxi driver, believe it or not. I used to do the night shifts and the weekends, so you'd get the lowest form of human life, basically, interacting with me. I would come home every morning and go, God, I hate this job. I wish I could bottle this horrible feeling.
00:02:37
Speaker
and just drink some of it so I don't have to go out and repeat this endless cycle over and over again for the next couple of nights and then I sat down and thought that would make a really good story you know and I ended up writing a story about it a novel uh which was a whole novel a whole novel came out of that yeah it wasn't very good but
00:02:59
Speaker
It was very cathartic and I realised that I really enjoyed writing and I was actually pretty good at it. So I then put all my efforts into becoming a writer from there on. So I wasn't thrust upon it, it was a choice.
00:03:17
Speaker
I suppose it was in the wings for quite a while. I was just kind of stumbling from job to job, wondering what it is that I was eventually going to do with my life. And it turned out that writing was my calling. So yeah. Yeah.
Rediscovering Creative Passions
00:03:30
Speaker
So did you do you enjoy writing when you were at school or did it? I was good at English. English was always my favorite subject. I think I came top of the year. I don't know. It was a long, long time ago. But
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what it is. It's kind of between leaving school and, you know, going through these different jobs, life gets in the way and you kind of forget what you used to love. I used to love drawing, that kind of thing. And yeah, life, you know, you learn so many different things as you're going up and growing up that you forget the things that, you know, gave you those passions in the first place sometimes, I think.
00:04:09
Speaker
I do think it's sometimes a bit of a trap. I mean, the world I come from is initially going to events in squats and being very much part of the DIY punk scene. So the sort of jump on the job treadmill thing, a lot of my friends even now, people I work with, it sort of never occurred to them. But I have got really good friends who did school, university, postgraduate job.
00:04:37
Speaker
and then get into their 30s and kind of go, what the hell am I doing with life? And I'm not saying you did that at all, but I always think it's really interesting that especially that seems to happen in the creative industry. So people who make stuff, it's quite often I meet them, they've actually done a job doing something that you wouldn't necessarily see as part of a career path to that.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. It's just, I don't know, I think I'm kind of the last generation who was told you're basically going to go and work at Asda for the rest of your life. You could never possibly make a living with something creative. How old are you? 43. Oh man, yeah, so we're really close. Well, I'm either 46 or 47. I genuinely would have to calculate it to see which it is.
00:05:28
Speaker
I was just going to say that, yeah, that's what we were told at school.
Impact of Technology on Creative Careers
00:05:33
Speaker
You obviously went to school probably several hundred miles away from where I did. I went on the east coast down the south near Ipswich and you have a less southerly accent.
00:05:49
Speaker
Well, when you said about your sexy voice earlier, I said, is he talking about his northern accent or is he just like bragging here? But yeah, I can remember going to the school careers office and them saying, what is it you want to do for a living? I said, I want to be a writer and like, no, next. I want to be a musician. They're like, no, you're going to, that's not going to happen. I ended up doing nursing for a while.
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, we were exactly the same. You go to your careers office and if you didn't want to be a professional footballer, you were going to work in a warehouse for the rest of your life. You know, if you say I want to be a writer, they laugh at you. So, but, you know, obviously times have changed and, you know, as long as you've got a mobile phone in your hand, you can do whatever you like as a business. And I think that's something that the people today have got growing up that we didn't have.
00:06:40
Speaker
We're literally told you're going to be nothing. Suck it up and get on with it kind of thing. I think one of the interesting things, especially for the younger generation now, so I've got a daughter who's 12 and a big part of her creativity is video making. Yeah. And for one thing, that would have been a challenge in the late 80s, early 90s. I did do it, but it was a challenge to be able to make videos. But the biggest, the biggest obstacle to actually deciding if there was
00:07:09
Speaker
possibility of doing anything like writing for a living was that you couldn't find an audience very easy. Everything was was relying on agents, you know, for if you're a writer. Yeah. For filmmaking, it would be, you know, I guess finding a producer or something like that. There was always somebody else you had to go and seek validation from before actually carving out your your niche as a creative.
Overcoming Youthful Insecurities
00:07:35
Speaker
Whereas now for, you know, my daughter can make a video and
00:07:39
Speaker
within five minutes of making it, it can have two, 3000 views on YouTube or TikTok. So there's your audience. So what more validation do the younger people need? And I think we, I wouldn't say we suffered for it as kids, but if you had your time again, and this is a terrible cliche question, but if you had your time again, would you have just gone and nuts to it and just stuck with writing early on?
00:08:07
Speaker
No, I don't think I would. I was a very, very nervous kid, had no confidence whatsoever in myself. And it took a lot for me originally to kind of write something and then actually show somebody, because I was terrified I'd get the whole pointy finger, ha ha, you know, good kind of thing. And I couldn't have caught with that. But, excuse me, I did get over it, obviously, eventually.
00:08:34
Speaker
But I think the thing you were saying earlier about, you know, we didn't have those same avenues. I think in a way that kind of maybe is a little bit stronger because we didn't have all these avenues.
The Art of Foley and Creative Processes
00:08:44
Speaker
We had to work that much harder to go and get it. So, for example, I think if I wasn't writing, I would have loved to have been a Foley artist.
00:08:53
Speaker
Now, people out there don't know what a falling artist is. It's the people that do kind of the vice effects for movies. So, for example, you know, The Exorcist, the little girl's head turns around. That was done by a guy got an old leather wallet and just held it up to a microphone and started scrunching it up. And that's the noise of the little girl's neck turning around.
00:09:14
Speaker
I would have loved to have done that for me growing up in a working class coal mining town, going to the careers office and saying, I want to be a Foley artist. Can you imagine? It's wild. You're the first person I've ever met who wanted to do that. And I know a lot of people in, or mutual friends of ours, who work in video making, and I can say the film industry. I do know people who work in the film industry.
00:09:42
Speaker
And foley artist is such a specific thing. It's such a very, very specific thing. But I can see that, what was it? Was it because it felt magical or was it, what was it that drew you to wanting to be a foley artist?
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, just because it's so creative, you know, whether I'm writing or doing a video or drawing or whatever it may be, I just love being creative. And I think that to me, at that point in time, it still is magical to me. That is the ultimate creation. It's taking something that doesn't exist.
00:10:16
Speaker
putting a noise to it and making it a reality. So I don't know. You're watching Godzilla. Obviously a Godzilla does not exist. We can go out and just applaud a Godzilla. You've got to go out and get all these different components and then make it a reality. So that to me is fascinating. I think everything creative comes down to making something where something did not previously exist.
Legacy Through Creative Works
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I think
00:10:44
Speaker
I was thinking about this the other day, and it's not because I'm a middle aged man, but I was thinking of the legacy, the legacy that creative people leave in the world, in their families and in their careers and in the business community is quite vast. Because there's people in this world who are very, very good at perfecting things and very good at creating systems, for example, and I want to make it very, very clear, I'm not
00:11:10
Speaker
down on the skills of anyone who isn't creative, because quite frankly, if everyone was creative, the world would be screwed. If everybody just wanted to make stuff, we'd be in real trouble. But there's something quite magical about the fact that if I cark it tomorrow, and I very much planned to stay alive for a very long time, there's all this stuff, there's albums, there's books like I've written books, there's tangible things that anyone who
00:11:37
Speaker
involves themselves in trying to experience anything I've created will get a little bit of me. So it's a little bit like making yourself immortal, being a creative. Yeah, it's a nice legacy to leave behind, I think. Like you're saying, there's always something tangible there, whether it's physical or digital.
Valuation of Creative Work
00:11:54
Speaker
But I also think conversely, sometimes we get dumped upon a little bit. And what I mean by that is,
00:12:06
Speaker
People are kind of, I'm not saying this is true of everybody, but I've met a number of people, I'm sure you have, where you display that you've got an artistic skill, whether that's, as you say, musicians, painting, drawing, writing, whatever it may be. And people are in awe of that. They go, wow, how do you do that? And then you tell them how much you want to do that. And they go, oh, no, no, no, sorry.
00:12:30
Speaker
It's like you take your car to the garage. You don't question how much your car is going to cost to repair. You just pay it. But if somebody creative comes to you and says it's X amount, suddenly people start bartering with you. And I say that obviously this isn't true of everybody, but I've experienced that a number of times. I don't know if you have. I certainly have. And I think it's partly because of this weird
00:12:59
Speaker
Puritan or Protestant work ethic thing, which I don't like. And it's the idea that if you haven't got calendars on your hands and you haven't broken a sweat, then you've not earned anything. And my God, those people, I've done a lot of manuals
00:13:15
Speaker
manual labor jobs. In fact, that's why I then got into what I do because I did so many agency jobs that did nearly kill me because I am not fit, strong or anything that I just kind of went, look, my body is just going to just crap out if I carry on like this. And that's why I made the conscious decision to do something else. But what I found is that the clients who do appreciate the creativity generally are the best ones to work for. I've got one client who
00:13:43
Speaker
We were in a meeting and we needed to, actually it was about writing. We needed to present something. We needed to present an idea that they had, that they want to get through to their clients and prospective clients. And I said, well, obviously just call it this. And she went, what? And I said, well, it's quite straightforward. That's what you're trying to get across. These are the right words to use. And she's the managing director of a company that she founded in the previous company she worked at. She took to a billion pounds.
00:14:11
Speaker
So she knows, she knows, she really knows it as well. And she said, no, no, what you're forgetting there is that you're a creative and I'm not so much of that. I was like, but you built this amazing business. And she said, yeah, because I know when to speak to creative people. I know when the creative people solve the problems. And sometimes I solve the problem, I'm talking in her voice now, I was going to do like an impression, but that'd be bad.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, she said, you know, I'm paraphrasing here, but you know, she knows how to do what she does very, very well, and she's very good at it. But she acknowledges that create without speaking to creative people. And she views us as mysterious animals, like, like, creatures, creatures almost. But to her, it's so alien. And I just went, well, obviously, obviously, it's that. And she's like, no, it's obvious to you. And at that point, that kind of went, yeah, creativity.
00:15:04
Speaker
Well, it should be celebrated. Hell, we do celebrate it, you know, all the time, but you can kind of feel like, you know, society doesn't perhaps value it as much as being able to. I don't know. I can't say anything because any profession I choose is going to sound like I'm being down on that profession. I know what you're trying to
Copywriting as Problem-Solving
00:15:26
Speaker
say. And like you say, I'm not trying to tap to tap. I'll start that again.
00:15:32
Speaker
I know what you're saying, I know I'm not trying to tie everybody with the same brush, you know, the people that do appreciate us, really appreciate us and that's really gratifying. And once I kind of got over the fear of myself, I found that that's one of the best parts of being a professional creative writer.
00:15:53
Speaker
when you can take somebody's problem that they're stopped with, as you were saying there, and you can go, oh, actually, just do this. And they're looking and go, wow, how have you done that? It's like you've just pulled it straight out of my head. That's really gratifying. It's a real skill. And I think anyone who is listening who hasn't worked with a creative copywriter, and I don't like to put all I don't like I don't like to put all copywriters in the same in the same group because we're a diverse bunch.
00:16:21
Speaker
I don't want to say I'm weak. I don't write very much anymore. But the creative copywriter's skill is represented best when they're selling it as not give me this amount of money or get this many words on a page. It's much better sold and better understood by buyers as it's problem solving. The fact the problem is that you need a blog post and you don't want to write it. That is a part of the problem.
00:16:48
Speaker
But so often I've sat down with someone, I was with a client earlier today, and they want to attract a certain audience in a certain part of the country. And they said, well, we want to get them onto a mailing list. I said, how are you going to do that? And they said, well, we don't know. We don't know at all. I said, well, what are you going to give them? Well, I don't know. Do we have to give them? Anyway, I'm not going to tell you the whole conversation. The end of it came about
00:17:17
Speaker
with a really nice idea that we conjured up between us to attract this audience that they want to attract. And I've got a really good feeling that it's going to work. But it wasn't just me walking into the room and going, right, you need 500 words on a blog post. What do you want to cover? See, one of the unintended benefits I don't think people who haven't worked with copywriters don't get is if you work with a copywriter, it makes your business better.
Freedom & Connection in Creative Careers
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, you said in your intro, your copywriting is quite an insular job, you know, I kind of sit here on my own, pasting, avoiding the sunlight as much as I can.
00:17:57
Speaker
The collaboration thing is really nice when you get into a room and you start thrashing ideas around and the initial idea becomes so much more than what it started out at. That, again, is really nice because, as I say, prior to going full time being a writer, I did endless jobs in customer service and what have you. So I've gone from kind of
00:18:24
Speaker
I mean, whose turn it was this particular day to give me crap at work, whether it's the customers, the bar session, love, that's terrible. It's the way you describe it. You present it so nicely. I don't sugarcoat it, you know, it's
00:18:44
Speaker
Working with the general public is hard work sometimes, you know, they can be absolutely horrible, especially if they're on drugs and drink, if you're a taxi driver, but I digress. So to go from that to choosing who I want to work with, to being creative, to do what I love and get money for that, and to see people's faces light up,
00:19:07
Speaker
because the problem that I have solved for them doing something that I love, it's night and day.
Research & Counseling in Writing
00:19:13
Speaker
It's so nice. It's so nice. I get to speak to people all over the world regularly, you know, Australia, America, Kuala Lumpur, instead of, you know, the people that live within a two mile radius of my town and will never leave. It's, you know, it's like Royce & Vacey will never leave. So to go from that little insular
00:19:34
Speaker
kind of pocket to a worldwide, you know, kind of web of... There's something in that name, isn't there? Yeah, might have to write that one down, yeah. Of experiences and, you know, an influence and knowledge. It's so gratifying and I really, really enjoy what I do. Excellent. This is turning into a real celebration of
00:20:01
Speaker
the freedom of being self-employed and of copywriters. I was thinking, what could I condense that down to? Listening to clients and helping them solve problems. I realised that there is an element of being a copywriter where you're a counsellor and a coach. That's why a really good copywriter isn't necessarily someone who just sits in a darkened room hammering away on a keyboard.
00:20:27
Speaker
is somebody who wants to help people. I think that's a real intrinsic part of it.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, excuse me, I'm not the first writer to say this, but being a writer isn't just writing. I'd say it's about 20% writing. The other 80% is research.
Frameworks vs. Intuition in Writing
00:20:44
Speaker
And as you say, you know, sort of problem solving and being a bit of a counselor, holding people's hands, directing them a certain direction, putting them off from a certain direction. It's that bit that allows you to do that final 20%. But without that, I think the final product would be rubbish.
00:21:01
Speaker
Here's a question for you. I'm going to ask you this because from a purely selfish point of view, when I'm into a topic and I really want to know about it, I always want to know what mechanical devices the creators use. And I've been reading about
00:21:16
Speaker
I've been reading up, I should say, so reading a few books about writing humor at the moment. Yeah. Because I've done writing humor, not so much for clients, but I've written for magazines and stuff for years where they employ me because I write funny. But I just pull it out of thin air. Yeah, I don't, you know, it comes from experience. And if I'm telling a story about something happened to me, it's really easy.
00:21:40
Speaker
But I've learned about writing joke webs at the moment. So you piece of paper, you write something down and then it's an actual mechanical process. And it's a book I read written by one of the joke writers from who I got news for you. So in your writing, have you found that once you turned professional, you had to start developing frameworks or these things come naturally to you?
00:22:05
Speaker
It's a hell of a question, isn't it? It is, yeah. I've never really thought of it in those terms. It sounds a bit silly in that I would probably still term it as winging it and just going with the flow, but no, I don't. Excuse me. Sorry.
00:22:32
Speaker
Excuse me, sorry. No, it's all right. You're 22 minutes in and that's the first cough. Considering you've got Covid, you've done that. That's good. The odds are good then. Excuse me. Right. Oh, let's try that one again. Oh, dear. No, it's a really interesting question. I don't have any frameworks. I just go with my heart. You could call that flying by the seat of your pants, I suppose, but it seems to work out so far.
00:23:00
Speaker
um I don't know it's I wouldn't like to call it intuition because that sounds a bit arrogant but I do tend to just get a feel for whatever it is that the person is telling me how to write for them and eight times out of ten I'm pretty much there on the first or the second draft I could say I know that sounds incredibly arrogant but
00:23:27
Speaker
I think that goes back to when I did that story, when I got out of taxiing, it just felt natural. It really did. It just felt as natural as breathing. And I think that's why I thought I've really found my purpose here because I didn't. I wouldn't say I didn't. I don't have to try it. Of course I had to try it, but it does kind of roll off the tongue more
Writing as a Practice
00:23:50
Speaker
often. I don't think it's arrogant in the slightest. Writing's a muscle.
00:23:55
Speaker
The more you do it, the better you get at it. When you start, you're probably quite slow and the more you do it, the faster you get. It's like any skill that you learn, you eventually, you solve an issue, you solve a challenge, you should say. I don't might say issue. You solve a challenge and you solve an opportunity just to really push that as far as I can.
00:24:16
Speaker
you solve an opportunity and that opportunity will come round in six months time or a year's time for somebody else and you kind of go, oh yeah, been there, I know what to do here. And when you've been writing for as long as you have, you've probably seen a lot of those opportunities now. Very true. Yeah, you're right with what you're saying. It is a muscle that you have to exercise and it's a muscle that I really enjoy exercising. It's a shame I can't say about the rest of my body, but
00:24:45
Speaker
Your brains fit as anything. Yeah, the body is another matter. But I think that that's that's a quite a fun note to end it on. I really appreciate your time. We'll put links to your your site and and your press coverage about your murder. You've earned a mystery novel. We'll put that in the show notes. Is there
Encouragement to Pursue Creativity
00:25:06
Speaker
any final thought you'd like to leave listeners with?
00:25:12
Speaker
Basically, don't be afraid of doing what you want to love. What would I say? I would say don't be afraid of doing something that you love.
00:25:31
Speaker
Don't be told that you can't do it. You can do it. If your heart's in it, if it's in your blood, if you really feel like you should do it, then go ahead and do it and don't let anybody tell you different. Damn straight. I'm going to say goodbye. Do you want to say goodbye? I'll say goodbye. Thank you very much for having me on. I've loved this. It's been great. Thank you.