Stellar Mistakes

Encouragement

It was the second week, and after their Tuesday meeting, Loke held Lucy in his office while the rest of the team left. Being alone with him was nerve-racking. She knew he would never attempt to do something here at work, but she wondered, if he actually did offer for anything more, what would she do?

"I looked at the proposal you turned in today," he said, pulling out the papers she had written up, with ideas and potential storyboards. "From what I gleaned, it's confined to facts about how amazing the Grand Magic Games are."

"That's right," she said, already hearing the displeasure in his voice but hoping she could make her case for the storyboards. "I think it's mainly the festivities and cheer that attract people to the GMG, so I tried to convey that."

Her concept for the commercial was ENERGY. She used prominent athletes who had the potential to win the gold and focused on showing how incredible they were.

"Okay," he said ambivalently as he flipped through the papers. "There's something to that. You're capturing what the GMG is at face value and expressing how incredible it is. That's good, but that's not what I want from you."

Lucy had been in this field of work long enough to know that that's not what I want from you was a polite way of saying the proposal she submitted sucked. Although it felt like a stab to the heart after she had worked on this for a whole week, she knew it was vital for this project to capture precisely the right theme. Loke chose her because he believed she could do this. She had to do better than something basic and good enough.

"Try thinking about it from another angle," he suggested. "I have faith in you. You can do it." With that, he gave back the documents she had submitted. She supposed that was kinder than just throwing them in the trash.

"Another angle? Such as?"

"Thinking about that is your job."

True. He had given her a hint and some encouragement. Now it was up to her to pull it off. He might have an idea of his own about another angle for the campaign, but he wanted her to come up with something fresh, something unique. That was the whole point of being a team.

She did not have time to sulk. She had to trust her talent, since he was trusting her with a mission this important.

She took the papers from him. "I'm sorry. I'll work on a new idea."

"You don't need to apologize. This is a very good storyboard, and if it was an ordinary account, you would've gotten an okay right away for something of this high quality. However, we're competing with other agencies here. We need something beyond good. We need jaw-dropping."

Oh, so she didn't totally suck, it was just that the GMG account was so important, she had to push past her normal limits of creativity. They had to win it at all cost, and they were up against Sabertooth.

"I know," she said firmly. "It has to be beyond what everyone is expecting."

"That's right. I'll know when you have it because I'll be picking my jaw up off the ground and wiping the drool off."

That made her chuckle and dissipated some of the gloom. She firmed up her resolve. "I won't disappoint you, sir."

"I know you won't, Miss Heartfilia."

Something about those words and the gleam in his eyes made her heart suddenly flutter. She bowed and left the room before she could succumb to that moment of weakness.

In the days to come, while sitting at her desk, all she thought about was the commercial. She jotted down ideas into a little notebook, until she had three whole pages of listed concepts. She began to cross one after another off as she ignored ideas that were average, and she tried to push the commercial theme into a new direction.