The Cycle of Creation

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
(Dombrosky's Six Steps of Idea Realization)

Tom Dombrosky had a way of distilling truth into six-word mantras, the kind you’d find scrawled on a lipstick-stained napkin at a bar that serves whiskey neat and disappointment straight up. 

When we were working on client campaigns, he felt we typically pushed through 6 distinctive phases he called The Creative Process. But really, it was just life condensed into six predictable steps.

Step 1: This is awesome.

You’ve got an idea. A big one. The kind that makes you sit up straighter, crack your knuckles, and declare: This. This is the thing. You picture awards, applause, possibly a parade in your honor. You tell Tom, and he nods, unimpressed.

Step 2: This is tricky.

Turns out, your genius idea has some... logistical issues. Like how a trapeze act sounds great until you remember you’re afraid of heights. You’re making adjustments, problem-solving, doing the work. But the excitement is fading, and there’s an itch at the back of your skull whispering, Hey, this might suck.

Step 3: This is shit.

Yeah. It definitely sucks. What the hell were you thinking? Who let you do this? Where is the nearest exit?

Step 4: I am shit.

It’s not just the work that’s terrible ... you’re terrible. A fraud. A hack. A pretender who should’ve been stopped years ago, preferably by someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth. 

Step 5: This might be okay.

But then... maybe. Maybe there’s something salvageable. A spark. A sliver of light breaking through the wreckage. You breathe. You tweak. You fix. You remember why you started this in the first place.

Step 6: This is awesome.

Holy shit. You did it. And somehow, it works. Maybe even better than you imagined. 

Once through the process, and reviewing my output, I can visualize Tom raising a glass, and toasting me with a grin. “Told you,” he says. "And tomorrow, we get to do it all over again."

________________________

For a few years, Tom and I were partners in a small advertising agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was the senior. I was the junior. I learned a lot, made a lot of money, and had one helluva good time. Here are a few Dombrosky stories you might appreciate:

Chutzpah

Research

It Wasn't Pretty

Kicking Butt in Restaurant Marketing

My customers love me but ...

 

After speaking engagements, I’m often approached by local/regional restaurants and retailers, who ask, “Customers love us, why are sales slipping?”

They’re confused and worried.  The reviews glow, the regulars gush, and yet the sales chart looks like it’s slowly melting.

I aways answer with the uncomfortable truth: “Love and growth are not the same thing.”

And then I tell them that before they need my services as a marketing writer, they have to take a hard look at their operation and I offer the following suggestions:

Maybe your customers are aging out. The 35-year-old customer who built your business is now 55 with different priorities. They still adore you, they just don’t buy like they used to. What are you doing to introduce yourself to the next generation?

Maybe you’ve stopped reaching out. Networking felt tedious. Social media felt like feeding a slot machine. So you coasted. Markets don’t reward coasting. They reward visibility. What are you doing to keep in front of prospective customers?

Maybe you’ve stopped asking for referrals. The people who love you know people just like them, but you’re not asking for the introduction. We’ll build a whole email funnel before we say, “Hey, send your friends.”

Maybe it’s time to look at your staff. Do they have the right training and energy? Customers can feel when they’re an interruption instead of a welcome guest and they quietly retreat, often to one of your competitors.

Maybe you’re not keeping your website fresh and up-to-date. If your website feels like a time capsule, you’re not charming. You’re invisible. People start online. Look at your other outreach too, from signage to advertising.

Maybe you’re not keeping up with subtle changes. Do your hours match modern life? Has your neighborhood changed.

Maybe you’ve changed. Is your heart still in it? Enthusiasm has a scent. So does burnout.

What’s happening in most of these cases isn’t failure. It’s drift.

It’s easy to confuse affection with momentum. Love is maintenance fuel. Growth requires motion. You can be deeply loved and slowly fading at the same time, like a band that still fills reunion tours but hasn’t written a new song in years.

You’re starting from a good place and the fix isn’t a shiny new tactic. It’s less glamorous than that:

Stay visible.

Invite new people in.

Train your staff.

Update the website.

Review the changes in your market.

Find your spark again.

Once you feel confident about your understanding of (and how you’re addressing) these key areas, then we can determine if I’m the best writer for your needs.

#451

 

This is my 451st blog post, which feels both satisfying and deflating at the same time.

On one hand, 450 posts is a real accomplishment for a writer. That’s years of thinking, drafting, rewriting, second-guessing, publishing, and occasionally discovering a typo five minutes after hitting “post.”

More importantly, it’s consistency. These posts became a kind of public workshop for me … not some frozen “best of” portfolio, but ongoing proof that I still write, still think, still care about the craft. And, If I do say so myself, a lot of them are pretty damn good.

But it’s impossible to ignore the weirdness of hitting a writing quantity milestone in the age of AI. Because 450 blog posts used to sound like an enormous amount of work. Now it sounds like a few decent prompts and an afternoon.

Does that diminish the accomplishment? Not really.

These weren’t generated. They were lived through. They’re 450 examples of me paying attention, wrestling with ideas, trying to offer something of value in a world increasingly optimized for speed over thought.

Still, AI changes the emotional math a little.

We live in a culture that worships output. Faster content. More posts. Infinite takes. Quantity has become a substitute for judgment because numbers are easier than taste.

Meanwhile, the real question: “Was it worth reading?” barely gets invited into the conversation.

So yeah, I’m proud of the 450. Not because it took a long time. Not because AI can’t do it faster. But because they represent me.

And I have a feeling (OK, maybe a hope) that that’s about to matter more than ever.

_________________________

Here are 1/2 dozen posts ... a representative sample of the 450:

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/03/contractions.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/02/blizzard.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/04/efficiency-at-cost-of.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/02/your-call-is-important-to-us-just-not.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2021/08/oxford-comma-defenders-rejoice.html

https://contentandcopywriters.blogspot.com/2026/02/i-hope-this-message-finds-you-well.html

This is human. That is machine.

 

What irritates me isn’t that AI can write. It’s that people are suddenly acting like writing was sacred all along. Like we’ve been protecting some great artistic tradition that, in practice, we’ve spent the last decade flattening into listicles, summaries, and keyword-stuffed oatmeal.

Now the oatmeal writes itself.

And everyone’s shocked.

There’s also this quiet panic underneath the conversation: this need to draw a hard line and say, “This is human. That is machine.” As if the label alone guarantees meaning.

But readers don’t experience writing that way. They never have.

They read something and think:

• Did this hold my attention?
• Did it give me something?
• Was it worth the minutes it took from my life?

That’s it. No moral philosophy attached.

Which is why this whole debate feels slightly off. We’re arguing about authorship like it’s the main ingredient, when most readers are just deciding if the meal tasted good.

Still, I don’t think this means writing is dead or that human voice doesn’t matter. If anything, it matters more … but in a narrower, sharper way. Because now there’s no hiding in competence.

If all you’re doing is writing clearly structured, perfectly fine sentences, you’re competing with something that can do that instantly, endlessly, without getting bored or needing coffee.

So the question shifts. Not “Can you write?” But “Do you have anything to say that isn’t interchangeable?”

That’s a harder question. And a more interesting one.

I find myself less defensive about AI than I expected. Maybe because it’s exposing something we’ve been avoiding: a lot of writing wasn’t as uniquely human as we claimed. It was just… adequate. And adequacy has a new competitor.

So no, I don’t particularly care if something was written by a person or a machine ... at least not at first glance.

I care if it makes me pause. If it nudges my thinking a few degrees off center. If it feels like someone, somewhere, actually meant it.

And that’s the part I’m not convinced can be automated.