Sundays for me are different than they used to be, mostly because we now attend church services in the evening rather than in the morning.

Creativity is something that is nurtured, not manufactured. The problem with “creative” work is that, well, it’s still work.

Rest of American Christian World: You’re missing out.

It’s 2:50 p.m. as of this writing, and I’ve got another couple hours of relaxing to do before church begins. And since my wife is away and my kids are napping, I’ve returned to the dreaded athletic club ads and found within myself a new ray of light.

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Matt of E+F, Laryssa and Gabe of Lil Dragon, and the author (behind camera) get their creative juices flowing.

At E+F, we work with an outfit out of Nashville called Lil Dragon Entertainment. Gabe and his cohorts help us translate our ideas onto video, mostly for television commercials. He’s been busy lately, and so have we, on a number of projects: WKU Football commercial, Web-only ad for WKU Alumni Association, new Bowling Green Athletic Club commercials, and a coming trip to Auburn to do Auburn’s men/women basketball commercials. The first and last are to be dramatic, the middle ones humorous.

That said, here are my memories of our meeting over Spencer’s fare yesterday:

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A glimpse at our proposal. ©Earnhart+Friends 2009. Not for distribution. Identifying features removed.

The past few days have been really busy ones… I’ve worked further on developing Western Kentucky University’s football TV campaign, as well as a related campaign for the WKU Alumni Association (hint: Big Red, Gary Ransdell, an elderly woman and a elbow drop). The designers and I finished up work on a “creative exploratory” — a fancy term for a proposal on how a new campaign might look — then presented it this morning to a fast-growing bank chain headquarted in the region.

Turns out, my ideas aren’t so bad after all… they really dug it, and it looks like they’ll go from prospect to serious client very soon. More interesting, though, is the feeling of positive feedback… it’s something we weren’t good at in newsland, and it’s probably been months (if not years) since I heard “good job!” and felt like the person saying it really meant it.

I guess all jobs have their ups and downs, and I’ve dealt with a few minor headaches here already. But today’s been a good day, and I’m not ashamed to say so.

So far, I’ve worked on a “creative exploration” for a growing bank in the region; rewritten a direct-mail piece I thought was “done” months ago; drafted new copy for an ad touting a certain industrial complex’s “green” features (which, honestly, are few); filled out tax forms; perused eBay for a power source, which is lacking from the otherwise fine Apple display on my desk.

I’ve also wondered whether or not I have a truly original, truly interesting “campaign” in me… and, if I do, will any of our relatively conservative clients go for it?

My story, while not as cool as Obama’s or Sotomayor’s — or even Bill O’Reilly’s! — is sort of interesting, particularly after I got to college. I decided to study journalism, but by the time I got to the college paper, the only spot left was on the copy desk.

A glimpse at the interior of my new career... the old newsroom has no windows! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I didn’t even know what a copy editor did, but soon I was in charge of the thing, overseeing a revolving staff of 0-2 people in the proofreading of stories. I did a stint as opinion editor, where I really crafted my writing style, but soon took a part-time job at the town’s actual newspaper, the Bowling Green Daily News.

A few months later, part-time became full-time; a few months after that, I got promoted to weekend editor: basically, the guy who runs the show when no one else wants to because they have lives outside the office. Here I added to my knowledge, learning page design and news judgment and some management skills.

A couple years later, burnt out from all that jazz, I bought a coffeeshop. (Note, I had not — and still have not — returned to college). Which I still have, and which is cool, but it doesn’t quite “pay the bills” for a married dad of two kiddos, one of whom is special-needs. So I headed back to the newspaper, got my old job back, and kept the coffeeshop… thus making me a “beancounting journalist,” to paraphrase my friend Nathan’s astute observation, which links back to a Kurt Vonnegut quote.

Well, late last night the beancounting journalist made yet another stark departure: I accepted an offer to become the Creative Director of Earnhart+Friends, a boutique (read: small but good) marketing firm based here in Bowling Green.

It’s truly a blessing, for a number of reasons. The schedule is more flexible (this helps my family and my business), the job is more creative and less cyclical (new projects every day, few if any “rules” that have to be followed), and — let’s face it — journalism isn’t the field anyone wants to find him/herself stuck in these days. (It’s not a terrible gig, but an escape plan is a must.) A close friend of mine is the Art Director, which means he and I will essentially be the firm’s top-tier tag team (underneath the owner, of course). And to find a job like this in a town like this is a dream come true… I am certain it is the only one of its kind in a 90-mile radius, at least.

In the previous few months I’ve taken part in writing TV scripts, rebranding a widely available retail milk, conceptualizing a new restaurant, crafting a new direction for the company itself — and all freelance, while keeping the other flaming clubs of my life going up and down in this juggling routine. Come July, however, my days as a muckraker are over — at least for now. What the future holds, I can’t tell. But the present is looking pretty good.

Oh! And the millions of you reading this will be glad to know that I’ll probably be able to get a bit more blogging done too.

The ugliest ad on earth? Maybe not, but it’s certainly worth a look. (Click it, it’ll get bigger.)

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