I tried to arrest my cousins with a catchy invitation to my party: “I’m eight, so come eat.”

At 12, I protested my mom’s plan to hang a world map in my room. I made dozens of small notes: (“What on earth are you thinking?” and “My room, my world!”) and posted them everywhere – on the bathroom mirror, inside the fridge, on the TV. Ultimately, my client was convinced, and the map was history. My first successful campaign.

There I was, a fish out of water, working in sales at a big clothing import company. When the in-house copywriter gave his notice, my co-workers physically pushed me into the ad department.

As the only applicant, I got the position immediately. I barely knew what a copywriter was.

I became part of a small, dynamic machine that pushed out eight full color catalogs a year. Total immersion. I learned about design, typography, photography and editing. But mostly, I fell in love with writing copy.

When RI’s oldest ad agency hired me as a junior writer, I did time under a brutal and brilliant creative director who tormented me into my potential. She threw me into the deep end so many times, I quickly ran out of swear words to call her under my breath.

But she made me a copywriter. After a decade in the trenches, I’d earned my scars and stripes, and left as a trained thinker.

Since then, I’ve written about diamonds, suicide prevention, garden hoses, Halloween costumes, cargo insurance, robotic surgery, wine, the global supply chain and bubbles.

And I remain stubborn in my reverence for idea-driven creative, and for “the line.” Whether it’s a headline or a tagline – a tickle or a gut punch – it's always about the line.

Without a good one, do the words that follow even matter?