It was a trek to get here and I can't say I'm completely settled, but here's the lowdown so far.

THE CITY: Salt Lake City is mad cool.

Cool in a few ways I'm familiar: the great outdoors can be found just ten minutes away, lots of natural food markets and the like, and a great music scene and hip nightlife. Although, everyone is ten times more athletic/outdoorsy than I will ever be. Cool in ways completely new to me: neat architecture (temples), public bikes everywhere, and incredible thunderstorms.

The other day I was driving home at night from the airport after an unfortunate debacle parking overnight in short term parking (my poor bank account). Between two mountain slopes that contribute to the incredible backdrop of Salt Lake City, I saw a giant amount of what I thought was smoke. Every few seconds I'd see a flash of light, and was concerned that I was witnessing an explosion. It wasn't for a couple minutes that I realized it was a thunderstorm isolated in between those mountains, and I was seeing it from far away under the otherwise clear, starry night. I felt small.

I'm going to state the obvious: There are a lot of Mormons. 60% of Utah is Mormon. And while there are those who are obvious, either in suits or long skirts and/or handing out pamphlets in the park, there are many who I wouldn't suspect until maybe I see them not drink coffee. What a concept, people who don't fit a stereotype! And everyone I've met so far here so far, regardless of affiliation, is incredibly friendly. Willing to give directions, help you with things up the stairs, and they always hold the door and elevator.

And guess what- you can still drink here! Yes, that's right! I wasn't sure what to expect. Yes, there are some interesting rules where you have to buy wine at the liquor store (conveniently a block from my place), and at many places they can only serve you a beverage up to 3.2% here. But a couple weekends ago, I had the opportunity to visit Beer Bar (co-owned by Ty Burrell) and the highest alcohol percentage there was a generous 9%+, something like that. I know to us Oregonians that's nothing, but I was pleasantly surprised. Particularly because I was able to buy Omission there (a gluten-free lager), albeit for a lofty $6, but totally worth it. Since my lack of friends/money/opportunities has restricted my alcohol consumption, I think my tolerance is going down.

Other observations: everything is closed on Sundays. Homeless people like to sleep in the grass around here. Dry heat gave me nosebleeds for the first four days, and now I only have to vigorously apply chapstick. There's a lot of Ultimate Frisbee and dogs (also my roommate, Temmy, is scared of said dogs).

THE WORK: I think I'm keeping my head afloat?

At Gumco, they didn't hesitate to make me feel like one of the team. Seriously though- I literally jumped straight into working on three different accounts my first week. I really wish though that I'd taken some ping pong lessons. On that Friday, we had a grueling office move in 100 degree weather where we migrated from Cottonwood Heights-ish area into the heart of downtown. Conveniently, only 8 minutes walking from my apartment! I dropped a table on my foot and am still feeling that bruise. We're still in the process of building Ikea furniture and unpacking little things but our new space is beyond rad. High ceilings, open floor plan, giant windows, a rustic wall reminiscent of a century earlier. The A/C is like a frozen tundra though. I've been bringing a sweatshirt to work for reinforcement.

So much so far has been been me pretending like I know what I'm doing. We'd touched on the concepting process in college: get the brief, brainstorm, team up with designer/art director, make cool shit. But this place is far from any student-level work. For each project, we're presenting 5-7 different concepts and that gets refined from a pool of at least 30, each with its own unique visual direction, headlines, and body copy.

We're always told in ad classes how advertising is creative problem-solving. I nodded and acted like I understood that, but I think it only really clicked for me the other day, slaving for hours over literally 10 words. With copywriting, it's not just about being creative or witty or eye-catching. Your words serve a function, and when crafting these phrases you have to encompass your key takeaways and tie them together in a smart, compelling way. I can't tell you how much of my time is spent doing two kinds of research, even after the brief is done: word/language research and brand research. I'm trying to get in the voice of a brand, so I need to know what they're about, what's their background, how do people perceive them, how do they want to be perceived, where do they live and operate, etc. This includes scouring everything from the company website (obviously) to Wikipedia, Google images, blogs/forums/comments, their social media channels, press releases, anything about them. What are they? What could they be? I find some general ideas of what I want to hit, say it's a city bicycle brand for 25-35 year-old young professionals, so maybe I'm looking at things to do with motion, getting places, commuting, ease, the list goes on. I'm looking at synonyms, idioms, famous quotes, alliterations, and definitely not rhymes or puns (as much as this breaks my heart). Could the bike's wheels be a metaphor for something?

This doesn't mean I'm any good at any of this. Everyday I anticipate self doubt. I've been very good at the smile and nod as I see hours of my work constructively deconstructed or straight up beheaded in front of me. On Tuesday morning as we were wrapping up an ad, I realized that the last three hours of work I had done side-by-side with my creative directors the night before had failed to save, and my laptop had lost the restored versions (thank you, Apple). My voice cracked and shook as I explained the situation. We tried a few things but, nothing prevailed. So we rewrote it. They weird thing with rewriting is it's not like a multiple choice exam where it's statistically proven that your first choice of answer is most likely to be correct. Rewriting and refining and reworking is a tedious process that is proven to make better work. How can you say something simpler? Is there a stronger word that could replace this verb? How do we make this shorter? When you look back on it after it's all done, you're like wow! Such skill! Much talent! But when you're in the middle of it, you feel just a bit worthless and stupid and eternally facing writer's block. Everything you churn out for a while sounds like a five year-old. But good stuff does happen. Which sounds a lot like "good things happen to good people!!" But for real though.

I sat down with my creative director Garrett today as he checked in to see how I was hanging. And he told me about his journey into copywriting. He'd just come away with a independent documentary that won a film festival award and felt pretty good about himself. But when he started his first copywriting job, it was a series of frustrations just like mine. How is my art director writing better lines than mine? Why are mine all garbage? I just wrote 40 and only two made it through to the second round? I already felt better about how I was doing. He told me that three of the ads I'd written with him had been picked by the client, so I was guaranteed to have one of them run in a national campaign in Ski Magazine. It made it worth it.

He gave some other cool pieces of advice, including this tidbit: you don't have to take your work home with you. Live outside of work. The best ideas come when you're not trying to think of them.

MYSELF: I'm trying to be comfortable feeling very, very alone.

Let's get personal: I used to savor coming home from class and work and having a couple of hours to myself, or an empty apartment for the weekend. Just ME time. I even aligned myself with many qualities of an introvert. However, I didn't realize how much I appreciated being around friends until I realized I didn't have any to be around. I love my roommate, she's amazing, but we met only three weeks ago. I've met many of her work friends already, but haven't made any friends of my own, and I'm trying not to mooch on hers. My office is made up of 10 wonderful people, each too who have their own lives. I've tried using the site meetup, recommended by a friend in New York, but here it's mainly run by thirty-somethings. In fact, the reason I'm writing this right now is because I'm trying to stay distracted from my loneliness on this Friday night where I can hear all my neighbors getting ready to go out. I'll be honest: I'm lonely and more than a little homesick. I miss my friends and family and my cat. I've felt this deeply suppressed cry coming on since I've moved here. Yet it's crazy for me to complain about these things to Temmy, who hasn't been to her home of Nigeria in 4 years. So I keep busy.

And I've been reading a lot.

I'm finally almost done with the third David Sedaris book I've now read, and on the side I'm reading the renowned Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!, on loan from my creative director, which has been recommended to me by every ad teacher since I can remember. The title sounds funny to us millennials who are far-removed from the series of original Charmin ads it references, not to mention the awkwardness of the word "squeeze" next to a word that rhymes with "nipple." (I said it, I know we all were thinking it). I'm only about 70 pages in, and already I'm hooked. It's incredibly insightful and personable, a true first-hand account of how to craft the best advertising, not the majority of crap we see on the television. One passage really stuck with me on the brainstorming process, a series of trial and error. He talks about how you can spend hours stuck on an idea, doing more research, finding something, feeling like you're brilliant, writing something down, looking back at it, realizing it's shit: rinse and repeat. It's a practice I've become far too familiar with, and I was so grateful to read and realize I wasn't alone.

I've been rediscovering old passions and finding new ones.

A few of my friends and family know I used to be really into playing ukulele, and I even have about a dozen songs I've written. But when I got busy junior/senior year, I just didn't have time. I've also always had crippling stage fright with playing in public and my stomach just drops thinking about it. But I still did it a few times, and I love hearing about my incredibly musically-talented friends making their big break, or at least continuing to play- mad respect. So I've been trying to revisit the uke. I like playing on my balcony especially (we're on the fourth floor), and this weekend I'm going to try and write a new song.
I started doing this 30 Days of Yoga thing, and although it's something kinda strange to me, it's been keeping me sane. The movements are fairly gentle but still a good work out to supplement the gym and Adriene (the instructor) is fantastic; she's also an actress, and has been in a few indie films such as Joe, as Nick Cage's love interest (WHAT).
My friend Lisa has an amazing talent for braiding hair and I've been tempted to browse Youtube and try out a few DIY techniques. Still struggling, but may improve.

Sooo. What you need to know is that I'm alive and okay. I may feel alone and a little bit stressed and overwhelmed. But I'm learning so much, and that's the best thing I could be doing right now. Many people asked me why I jumped straight into an internship out of college, just a week after I'd graduated. I think that I didn't want to spend another day doing a job I didn't love. And sometimes I feel so lucky having that.

copywriter

19 DAYS LATER: WHAT I'VE LEARNED SO FAR ABOUT SLC, COPYWRITING, AND MYSELF