[writing] Creatively bankrupt

I just realised that I am a stinking copywriter. Which shouldn't be that much of a surprise, but when I got nominated to write up the Ebay auction for the FNet figure project, I churned out a page of surprisingly readable text without any appreciable pause for thought. I know how to craft a good auction - before I started selling I did a lot of research on the topic, looking at good auctions and bad ones and really really ugly ones. (Hint: 72 point font does not make me want to purchase your MIB Cy Girl Electra. It makes me want to stab you in the face.) I guess I just hadn't realised how much of an automatic procedure it had become for me.

I guess it's a useful skill just like any in the writing business, but I dunno - I'm having a hard time feeling proud of it. Advertising = bad. It's a reflex of my generation, just like deep suspicion of government and the urge to purchase small items of technology, the multiuse depths of which most of us will never fully explore. It's manipulation. It's trickery. It's shim-sham, it's glitter, it's razzle-dazzle.

On the other hand, I've never sold anything that I didn't really believe was a good product, and the FNet figure is no exception. I suppose that so long as I continue to use my powers for good and not evil, I'll be able to sleep at night.