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𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝗯?
One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite shows, 𝘔𝘢𝘥 𝘔𝘦𝘯, is about creativity and productivity:
It opens with Don Draper, creative director, talking to his ad agency’s financial chief, Lane Pryce. Lane is complaining about the copywriters: they’re not being productive in the creative lounge. They’re napping, socializing, playing darts.
Don looks at him: “We do this better than you,” he says. “And part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive… 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦.”
𝗟𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁:
Creativity boils down to putting old things together in new ways, which is a two-step process:
𝟭/ get knowledge and experiences
𝟮/ make unexpected connections
But usually, you can’t force a connection. Usually, you need to 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘹 it out by doing something unrelated, something distracting.
Like napping.
Like socializing.
Like playing darts.
These things 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 unproductive, yeh, but they’re not.
Because while these things distract your conscious mind, your subconscious will continue working, incubating, processing your knowledge and experiences until a random sequence of synapses fires off in your frontal cortex:
And you have a moment of clarity.
And connect disparate things.
And then you blurt out:
“Hey, that’s interesting!”
And your colleague looks up and says, “What?”
And you lean back and say, “Well, what if…”
And then you’re off to the races.
“You’re often most creative," says artist Austin Kleon, "when you’re the least productive.”
Don Draper agrees: whether you work in copywriting or any other creative discipline, part of your job is not doing your job.
𝙮𝙚𝙝?
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
15+ accounts that will teach you more about viral launches than any course on X
Accounts that taught me the most:
1. @MitcheIl the viral launch guy, founded Shown Media and directly responsible for some of the biggest tech launches on X
2. @gregisenberg Late Checkout founder, posts on product positioning and what makes launches break through. One of the most-watched launch strategists on X
3. @harrydry marketing examples breaks down real campaigns with actual before/afters, best for studying what makes copy convert
4. @mattepstein posts Claude + MrBeast-style frameworks for viral content, very practical methods
5. @VeryGoodCopy his direct response copywriting micro-lessons are essential for understanding hook mechanics
6. @alexgarcia_atx breaks down viral brand campaigns and marketing psychology in thread format, one of the clearest teachers on what makes content spread
7. @ItsKieranDrew copywriting and hooks specifically, built his entire audience reverse-engineering what makes people stop scrolling
8. @jmoserr X growth, hook writing, and the algorithm, shares very tactical lessons
9. @sweatystartup you learn distribution and launch strategy from a founder who has done it repeatedly
10. @julian Bell Curve founder, shares best frameworks on growth mechanics and what actually makes things go viral
11. @levelsio most launch reps of anyone on this list, all solo, watch what he posts on launch day
12. @amandanat she coined zero-click content and permissionless co-marketing & clearest voice on what makes content spread without paid
13. @alexxgrowth generated 1B views with ghost creators, posts pure distribution tactics, very few people talk about what he talks about
14. @richardzphotoz ran marketing at a VC-backed startup at 17, then joined a16z, one to watch early
15. @eriktorenberg leads a16z New Media, the team literally runs viral launches for portfolio companies as a service, follow to watch how the best-resourced launch machine in tech thinks
16. @alexdanco a16z New Media, the essayist on the team, best for understanding how to frame a product's story and position it inside a larger market argument & the intellectual layer behind what makes a launch land
17. @gabygoldberg a16z New Media, she is sharp on culture, tech narrative, and what resonates with a tech-native audience; follow for taste and positioning instincts
This is how the ones that go viral actually work👇
Viral Framework comes down to 4 things:
1. Market argument before product
2. Money outcome before features
3. Feature strongest moment first in the video
4. Building for the 300-person X algorithm test before anything else
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
“It’s like hiring Tom Cruise, finding out he charges by the stunt, and you don’t know if you’re making Jerry Maguire or Mission: Impossible” is a hilarious analogy for companies blowing their AI tokens.
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
He was hired to write copy with zero experience. So he kept a secret Google Doc. It became VeryGoodCopy.
Our cover story on @VeryGoodCopy
yespress.io/eddie-shleyner?u… via Yespress
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
Rethinking how newsletters fit into a content ecosystem.
Email isn't dying, lazy email is.
What newsletters are you actually opening every week?
Mine would be @VeryGoodCopy! Such a breather to read his work.
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
Very Good Copy by @VeryGoodCopy (Eddie Shleyner)
Education and stories together. Absolutely brilliant and easy.
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
A masterclass example of “SHOW, don’t tell”
Credit to @VeryGoodCopy and David Abbott, this book is sick
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
My parents read my mind this Christmas! I’ll be reading this book daily till further notice. @VeryGoodCopy Eddie- thanks for the insane knowledge. So exited for 2026.
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
My favorite copywriting books ranked (in order)
1. Very good copy
2. Kick-ass copywriting secrets
3. Adweek copywriting handbook
4. Infotainment jackpot
5. Breakthrough advertising
6. Cashvertising
7. Storyworthy
Yours?
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
Correct, anything after Adweek Copywriting Handbook and Cashvertising is 💩
Except for @VeryGoodCopy — that book is amazing
If you’re a writer, then you are also your work’s first reader.
So pay attention to how YOU feel after writing something. Key in on your emotions, your gut. Because if it doesn’t move you, chances are it won’t move your audience either:
"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader," said Robert Frost. "No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."
Affect yourself first.
Being a copywriter:
It’s 1968. Don Draper, the creative director at an ad agency, meets Lloyd Hawley, a supervisor at LeaseTech, a company that installs computers, which, back then, took up an entire room.
“You must have a hell of a business right now,” Don says, gesturing towards the machine Lloyd’s team is wheeling into his office.
“We’ll see,” says Lloyd. “It’s tough, because we both sell IBM’s product and compete with them.”
“Who’s winning?” Don says. “Who’s replacing more humans?”
“Well I go into businesses every day,” says Lloyd, “and it’s been my experience these machines can be a metaphor for whatever’s on people’s minds.”
“Because they’re afraid of computers?” says Don.
“Yes,” Lloyd says. “This machine is frightening to people, but it’s made by people.”
“And people aren’t frightening?”
“It’s not that,” Lloyd says. “It’s more of a cosmic disturbance. This machine is intimidating because it contains infinite quantities of information, and that’s threatening, because human existence is finite.” He shifts his weight. “But isn’t it godlike that we’ve mastered the infinite? The IBM 360 can count more stars in a day than we can in a lifetime.”
Don looks at him. “But what man laid on his back counting stars and thought about a number?”
This conversation is fiction, an excerpt from Mad Men.
But the sentiment—the fear—is real, an accurate reflection of the tension people felt in the late 1960s when the emergence of computers was both a practical threat and an existential one. Back then technology evoked awe for what humans created, but also anxiety over being eclipsed by it.
In 2025, people everywhere, in almost every line of work, feel the same way. Once again, we’re feeling this insecurity, this dread, this loss of control, a “cosmic disturbance” as Lloyd puts it. It’s dehumanizing, in a way, a poignant reminder of our own finitude:
“The IBM 360,” Lloyd says, “can count more stars in a day than we can in a lifetime.”
“But what man laid on his back counting stars and thought about a number?” says Don.
As a copywriter, I love this exchange and think about it often. I think about Don’s position, about his reluctance to quantify the stars. Instead, he prefers to dream about them, to create stories about them. This mindset—this propensity to imagine and wonder and make meaning rather than merely calculate—is a big part of being a copywriter.
“But why did you put a comma there?” Bob pointed at the sentence. “And not there?” he pointed somewhere else.
I looked at him. “Cause that’s how I want folks to read it,” I said.
Copywriting isn’t perfect grammar, Bob.
It’s a feeeeling.
Copywriting is more about ideas than writing.
So sometimes, an ad doesn’t need words to be effective.
Sometimes, as David Abbott puts it, the best copy is no copy at all:
Copywriters are not paid to write.
Writing well is important but our job, above all else, is to think, to connect things. Connection, as it were, is our true work.
Eddie Shleyner 🇺🇦 retweeted
Just got @VeryGoodCopy's Transformational Landing Pages course.
You're never too good, too smart, or too busy to improve your skills.
Let's dive in...
stunner, @george__mack
After 7 months of writing, I finished my essay!
I think agency might be the most important idea of the 21st century
highagency.com
You can’t escape a borderless place.
Because you don’t know when to turn. Or when to double back. Or even when you’ve made it out. As copywriters, we *need* walls and forks and dead ends that force us to make decisions, to go left or right or up or down.
Limit your time, format, word count, and audience.
Restrict yourself!
Restrict yourself, lest fear paralyzes you.
Restrict yourself, lest freedom enslaves you.
The scariest thing in the world (to a copywriter) is a world of possibilities.
𝘱𝘴𝘴𝘵...for more micro lessons, interviews, and courses about #copywriting and #marketing and #creativity—all free—visit VeryGoodCopy.com