I have been working as a freelance writer for about 3 years now. It can be really fulfilling. Not to mention it pays the bills. I am very fortunate to have been able to do this. I have been writing as a passion since I was about 10. I even wrote a series about teenage twins who could sense the dead and worked together to help them to solve whatever mysteries were preventing them from crossing over (yep…I pretty much was writing The Ghost Whisperer long before it became a thing).
I grew up wanting to either be a veterinarian or a writer. At some point, I learned that I am scared of most animals, so the whole veterinarian thing probably wasn’t gonna happen. Lol! I am happy that I have actually been able to get paid to do something that I have loved for so long.
However, when your passion becomes your business, you sometimes find that you no longer do just the things that you loved about it. For the past 3 years, most of the time that I spend writing is for others. There are some things that I do for myself. My blog is one of them. However, I have also been working on a Young Adult Fantasy novel since 2011 and last year I began writing a book designed to help my fellow network marketers with their businesses. I find that I often neglect these three projects. Especially my novel.
As I submitted my portion of a book that I am collaborating on (Blogging for Beginners), I realize yet again how far behind schedule I am for my own books. I would love to see both of them published by the end of the year. That will require for me to dedicate the time to getting them finished.
So this is me publicly vowing to spend more time writing for me. I want to develop a habit of writing for at least 30 minutes each day on something that is not for a client. So I am going to challenge myself to do just that for the next 30 days.
It will likely be hard to mentally dust off my novel, become reacquainted with my characters, and dive back into that world. I’m a bit nervous that I won’t be able to find my rhythm again. But I am going to try. Perhaps the people who have read and enjoyed my novel so far will be happy to know that I am getting back to it. 🙂
Are there any other freelancers out there? Do you find yourself struggling with this as well? Perhaps we can encourage each other to spend more time doing what we love purely for the love of it. If you plan to participate in this challenge, click to tweet this:
There are no prizes. Just the feeling of getting back to the purity of doing what you love. 🙂
[…] my business, that was just way out of whack. I didn’t feel like I had any kind of balance (as I shared earlier this year). I was taking on work that I didn’t truly find enjoyable. To make matters worse, I was […]