Post 1: Make A List

So the directive this week was to make a list.
Okay, vague.

When I sat down to try it I had no idea where to start so I tried to use the suggestion from Sarah Kay’s video and make a list of things I knew to be true. About Volkswagen. That didn’t go so well. In fact, it went so badly, I’m not even going to post that list. It was awful and cliche and I really wasn’t feeling it which was making me annoyed at the whole process. I suddenly just wanted to give up and go do something that made me happy. And then that got me thinking: “Hey! I can make a list out of that.” So here’s a few things I came up with that I thought might make people happy:

• Nice weather
• Vacations (in theory at least)
• Getting in bed after a long day
• Kissing
• Knowing someone loves you
• Waking up on a Saturday and knowing you don’t have to do anything
• When your favorite song comes on
• Feeling attractive and confident
• Getting off work on a Friday
• Good food
• Success at accomplishing a task
• Winning
• Pleasant company
• A beloved pet greeting you
• Watching cute animals
• The powerful feeling after a great workout (or maybe that’s just me)

Not all of them actually apply to me (I tried to be sort of general) but I thought it was a good start.

Well now what, right? I then made the mistake of overworking this into an incredibly detailed and yet cliche commercial idea that included a dash cam sing along, six different scenes, a seating chart for a convertible beetle, a soundtrack, and even the car colors for each clip. It was too much and all done before.

I then once again abandoned that train of thought. Well, close to an hour later, all I’m left with is one list, with some potential but no real successes. Maybe there is some golden nugget in the almost-screenplay I wrote for the stupid commercial but I feel no closer to a good idea than I did when I started.

(Here’s the word vomit associated with the commercial disaster.)