What the heck is a freelance fail day? No idea? That’s okay. I didn’t really know either until I read this article. When I read it for the first time the timing was a little weird. I was experiencing something very similar, and I thought I was experiencing either writer’s block or writer’s burnout. It turned out to just be good a good old fashioned freelance fail day.
So I woke up one day, felt the equivalent of a hangover, minus the alcohol side of things. In other words: a non-literal, mental hangover. It started off great and didn’t really kick in until the end of my routine, morning jog.I felt powerful, and was like: “I got this, time to work.”Sounds fantastic, right? Well, that’s what I thought for literally a second.
Reality set in when I put on my headphones, opened my word processing software and started playing Kate Nash on repeat. One song turned into multiple songs while I started getting increasingly spaced out. All of the above lead to zero words and zero progress.Time went by.One hour turned into two. I started worrying about tiny things: from invoices to that deadline or two that I should be thinking about. I remember that week clearly. I did reach deadlines but not without feeling like I was writing “stuff.” Thanks, fellow blogger, Lori Hill for putting that feeling into words!
When I couldn’t take it anymore I just put my work on hold for a bit. I went for a walk, I got a type of coffee that I love, and I talked to people I love who were all like: “you can do it, soldier on girl!”
The thing about freelancing and creativity is that sometimes you just get tired. I know that’s the case with everything but making a business out of creativity sometimes means that sometimes you have to work when you’re not feeling inspired. The key to mastering it is just to know when it’s time to take a break. The break can be as long as a day or two, and as short as an afternoon or evening.There’s a reason why I stopped believing in the muses a long time ago. If you believe in them, they’ll likely backfire at some point (please excuse my cynicism.)
That article that I read on freelance fail days provides productive solutions. I think that the real key to creativity is anything that fosters self-love, and reiterates your sense of purpose. I think that’s the real reason why I’ve read ancient tales about gods and goddesses that foster creativity and romantic poetry about lovers that convince the writer to just keep trying to thrive at life in general. I’m pretty sure that’s also why the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is such a common troupe. Anything that reminds people to just plain take care of themselves properly, in my opinion, is the source of “real” creativity.
