Can't write a great headline? Write 100 of them.

I almost giggled at his reply. After all, it was absurd. I had just told my creative director I couldn’t think of a good headline, and his advice to me was to go write one hundred of them.

“If I can’t write ONE good one, I asked him, “how am I going to write 100 good ones?”

“I didn’t tell you to write 100 good ones. I just told you to write 100 of them. Most of them won’t be any good at all,” he replied.

I didn’t believe him. But he was right.

I sat down and started typing out 100 of the worst headlines ever. Some were pathetic just because I was resenting the fact that he didn’t help me (I didn’t realize yet that he had.) Some were bad because I kept rearranging words from my original bad headline to fill space. Some were bad because I had to get them out of the way to get to the good ones waiting behind them — and there it was.

Good headlines were just the other side of bad ones. Suddenly I had one I thought I liked. I grudgingly admitted this to myself as I typed a few more, and a few more. Somewhere around 85 I started getting some really good ideas. And I finished strong — I had 105 headlines and at least 10 of them were pretty darn good.

It’s a lot like making meringue.

If you’ve ever made meringue (or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for that matter) you know there is a time where you keep stirring and mixing, but you look at the evidence in front of you and doubt it will ever be like the photo.

My first meringue was a fail because I thought I knew better than everyone who had ever come before me and made meringue. I doubted my own grandmother who told me “just keep mixing.” So I didn’t keep mixing. I thought I had mixed it enough, and I stopped before it was actually meringue and added it to the recipe. It did not work out at all. Rock-hard brown lumps are not what I was going for.

Write, and trust.

You have to trust the process, and keep writing them. Once you have the right ingredients, just keep mixing. Suddenly you will start to see the results of your effort take shape, and before you know it, you’re there. It’s honestly the best advice I can give on how to write a great headline. Just keep writing them.

I try to pass this wisdom down to my writers today, and they give me the same face I must have given back then. “Are you serious?” or “Yeah, right” are common replies. But years of experience have given me the faith to look into that murky bowl — or at that blinking cursor — and know there is greatness on the other side, even if I can’t see it yet. I trust in the process because it has never let me down.

So yes, I tell them. I am serious. Just keep mixing.