Write What You Know? No, Write What You Love.

I have lately had a mini-crisis of sorts in regards to my still new, but no longer fledgling freelance writer status. I haven't been motivated to write much of anything. I see the thick book full of potential markets for future writings, with all of the specific instructions on how to make inquiries each, and got a little nauseous. I checked out a list of writer's marketing websites I have been collecting and occasionally perusing over the last few months and found myself almost wishing I'd lose my internet for a few hours just so I didn't have to read one more of them. And as usual, the very thought of finding a networking event to attend in person, business card in hand made me momentarily wonder if the priesthood might not be a viable way out of this whole career networking thing. (And I am not a member of a church...so think about that.)

More than once in the last week or so even as I fulfilled the writing responsibilities I already had, I pondered if it was all really going the way it should. Hard work I believe in. Miserable work I do not, and yet the whole process of finding places to make the most money writing was starting to wear me down. The research. The pricing. The budgeting. The potential for negotiation. (I haven't done much of that yet, as most of my work has a set payment from the source.) For being something I am supposed to be built for, I certainly didn't feel at all like a freelance writer.

Late last night, as I lay pointlessly in bed, sleep eluding me, something just sort of made its way into my thought stream.

"It all sucks lately because you are using all your energy to find a paycheck and not to write."

I actually sat up in bed a bit when it came to me. I repeated it out loud once or twice. And it gradually sunk in. This voice within my mind was correct. I've been trying to shoehorn my writing mission into available marketing scenarios, instead of creating a quality product that is unique to me, and presenting it on its merits to whomever I decide should see it. As a result, the creativity I usually tap when I write has been a bit plugged of late.

The time and energy I have spent in recent months trying to create an income stream has increasingly outweighed that which was dedicated to actually writing. My focus was on money. On not having enough of it. On desiring to make 100% of my living through writing. On paying off every penny of all my debts as soon as possible. My focus was not actually on writing. I was using writing as a tool to fix my financial situations, as opposed to writing because I have something that needs to be said. I wasn't burning out on writing. I was burning out on money grabbing. My focus should have been on the actual craft of being a wordsmith.

Don't get me wrong. I know that a freelance writer has to have some business acumen. In addition, I know that my acumen in that area is lesser than many others. But I also know that the business side of things can't really take the front seat. Not with me.

Many of you fellow freelancers will probably tear me apart for that, and if you do, so be it. But I am Too XYZ to just follow a business template because most other people follow it. It has to be true to me. And pursuing the money, and trying to adjust my writing to it wasn't being true to me.

No, I need to stop, and think about those articles, blog posts, columns and other writings that are already in my head, waiting to materialize. And I need to give them life on the page, and find later what to do with them. Some may call that writing on spec, and many hate doing so. But I need to create a sparkling product, and the better way for me to do that at this time is to write what I feel I need to write, and then find a market for it. (Or in the very least an audience, even if no money is involved.) As it stands now, many things are not being written because I haven't established enough connections in the business, or haven't found a perfect magazine, or I haven't found a contest that calls for my type of writing specifically. In the mean time, stress, doubt, and fear are filling the void left by the delayed composition.

Writing with passion is important, because it will translate into my work, and make it more desirable in any venue, free or paid. It will leave people wanting more. I doubt that it is a coincidence that my most passionate blog posts here tend to be among my most read. (Not always, but often.)

And what happens when the fire burns out, and I run out of things about which I feel a visceral need to put into words? My sense is that the more I allow myself to write the things I am inspired by, the more inspired I will be to write other things.

Plus, it will also encourage me to go out into the world and experience more in the coming year or so. Visit more places, read different publications. (Even meet more people, but only once in a while.) The more I am exposed to, the more I am going to be inspired to write about. And hence, the better my chance of selling something becomes. It has worked here on the blog, and it must work with the more business oriented I create.

I fight with writer's guilt a lot. I haven't always recognized that, or even admitted it when I did. But I do, and I guess lately it has gained some traction and got ahead of me. But I need not be guilty for being a writer. I can't let the inane and archaic Protestant Work Ethic, and the myth of merit based American Dream guilt me into either running everywhere for a paycheck, or abandoning writing altogether in favor of working at something I hate just to get a paycheck. My family won't let me starve, and I need to make use of that investment they make in me to become a more successful version of myself as a writer. I must not use that generosity as a source of guilt over having debt and needing help.

In the end, it really only takes one post, one article, one well phrase comment, or one reader, editor, or fellow writer to turn the tide and send me into my optimum student loan paying, independent living, sustained income version of myself. And that one single piece is more likely to find its way to the right places if it has been stamped by my own passionate desire to speak, as opposed to being stamped by my desire to convince anyone anywhere to print a piece for me, pay me, and add to my clip collection.

Writing is about sharing ideas. Communicating. Connecting. Educating. Moving. Sometimes even saving and changing. But it is always about us. Those who do the writing. The best writing exists because it has to. And I have not been letting the writing of mine that has to exist lead the way to success. I got caught up in money.And to an extent, in the approval of a nebulous society that has honestly never been ideal for me anyway. (What's the name of the blog??)

The business part of it all isn't over for me. Neither is my hatred of same. Nor is the quality of the products I do produce. My writing is always something in which I take great pride. But for a while, instead of spending hours researching who will pay me to do one of two things I do well, I am going to try to spend those hours researching a new topic that has caught my interest. Or finding sources for an argument I want to make. That way at least I know there will be a result each and every time. The result being a written piece. I can go from there. But the other way had zero guarantees, and I am not prepared to live with that much uncertainty right now.

These inspired writings may not always lead to inspired writing assignments. But they will best showcase my skill, because I will have been committed to them. And though the copy writing job I land may not give me a chance to be an artist, being an artist may give me the chance at the copy writing job.

So begins (again) the long process of being true to my writer self. Yes it will probably be a slower journey than yours. (I'm talking to you, fellow freelance writers that have become instant successes.) But it will be my own road, and I think I have swerved off of that lately.

Belated Sense of Direction

This blog was designed not simply to offer personal advice and observations about succeeding,  but also to, in as frank a manner as possible, examine some of the reasons I may be so far behind society's (and sometimes my own) definition of success. While much of my lagging behind remains a mystery to me, years of introspection have led me to realize a great many possible reasons. Some could not have been avoided. Some could have been. Some are huge, and some started out quite small, and would, in theory have been easily rectified if I had as much self knowledge at the time as I do now. I'd actually like to talk about one of the small things today.

Driving. I'm not especially bad at it, and once I have driven somewhere, oh, about 100 times, I have no problem with doing it. But there has always been a slight tension in me associated with driving. Especially when driving somewhere new. It's better now, but for the first few years I drove, it was almost clinical.

It was a combination of things, really. First, my sense of direction is garbage. If I could park in a giant paper bag, I probably couldn't find my way out of it on my own. Owning a GPS has for the most part eliminated this problem for me today, but for the longest time it kept me from things.

I don't think you can really learn that. My mother has an exceptional sense of direction, and she is the one that taught me to drive. (My father died when I was a child, and ZERO people stood up to help fill the gap. Another reason I don't have all the tools I need,  but also another post.) So her sense of direction didn't rub off on me.

Mom, however, is also a slightly nervous driver. Never takes highways except in an emergency. Doesn't like to drive after dark. Likes to hover just under the limit. Because this was the type of driving I was exposed to 85% of the time growing up, and as I was getting a licenses, I did inherit those things.

So combine a lousy sense of direction with a pretty constant fear of other people in traffic, and you get someone who doesn't drive more than 10 miles from home very often between the ages of 16 and 21.

When college came, I very rarely ventured further than a few miles from campus in the car for the same reasons. I feared getting lost, or hurting somebody. Fortunately in college there were more caravans on which I could hitch a ride to do stuff than there were in high school. But as far exploring nearby towns and such myself...never happened. Maps just look Greek to me.

To this day I do not do highways very often. (But more than I used to.) I won't drive certain times of the evening or morning. Traffic makes me a wreck. (No pun intended.) So through the years, my job hunt, (a dismal failure anyway for much of my life) always took one thing into consideration first; can I reach the place via public transportation. If I couldn't I wouldn't apply for the job.

Now I am somewhat fortunate in that I live within the Washington D.C./Maryland/Virginia public transportation vortex. Trains. Metro. Buses. If I had ever gotten a job in those places I could have swung a public commute in most cases, I dare say. But this is beside the point. I am sure you can tell that such a timid view of driving, seemingly an insignificant character quirk for the longest time in my mind, was actually a moderate to severe limitation on my creating opportunities for myself in all sorts of areas. Career. Recreation. Social.

Could this have been different had I been taught to drive by a more adventurous, relaxed driver than my mother? Or was it a symptom of a deeper psychological situation within me that could not have turned out any differently, regardless of who taught me to drive? I imagine the true answer to that can never be known. But I mention here because without a doubt it was something that initially seemed to be rather small; I don't like driving. But over the years it became a significant hindrance.

And it remains a problem to some extent even now.

But I have improved. Again, the GPS has helped a great deal. I try to make plans that allow me to drive in lighter traffic times. Sheer practice on the horrible Route 340 in West Virginia, (whose traffic flow has increased by 65% since I first took it to a theatrical rehearsal 7 years ago) make things easier than they otherwise might have been.

But there is still no way in hell I am driving the D.C. beltway, no matter how good the job.And it would have to be very important for me to attempt I-270 in Maryland. But I do things now I didn't do as a teen. Maybe in a few years I will be doing even more. If I'm not Too XYZ for it.

Band-Aids

“It will work for a while,” goes the old cliché’, “but it’s just a band-aid.”

So? We need to embrace band-aids, not avoid them.

I agree of course that some problems are so serious that very particular steps must be taken to fix them. But the problem with the whole “it’s just a band aid” warning is that it overlooks something.

For the right things, band-aids work. And they work just fine.

One problem I think people that are Too XYZ have is that they reach a point, (as I often do) where they feel that they must organically fix, alter or “heal” all of the weird stuff about themselves. And that until they can make a quirk or deficiency go totally away, they are somehow less mature. They say to themselves;

“Because most people like the bar scene, and get most of their relationships or sex from there, I need to find a way to also be comfortable with the bar scene." "I like to read, but only cheap romance novels. It will best serve my intellectual reputation if I find a way to enjoy the classics." "I need to find a way to write a better resume for myself, because I just can't seem to get it right."

Those would be the three complicated or stressful solutions to these situations. But all three also have band-aid options.

One could meet people online. Read the Study Notes or abridged versions of the classics. If you have the money pay somebody to write a resume for you and be done with it.

Ask yourself if the fundamental problem you are trying to solve is really going to have far reaching consequences to your conscience or your safety. If it isn’t, forget the rebuilding process. Stick a band-aid on there. Take the short cut. Few will care. And if they do care, and start to preach “The Band-aid” sermon to you, tell them you would prefer to spend your energies on improving things you can control. Such as avoiding negative people. Then walk away.

I am a prime example of this. I am a terrible navigator. Part of it comes from not having a lot of driving experience when I was younger. Part of it is just me. As a result, I went to fewer places then most of my friends because I was scared of getting lost. (I didn’t have a cell phone in my youth.) Job and social potential decreased, and so on with the rest of those dominoes.

For a while, I had it in my head that I had to learn to be a better navigator. Study maps. Take practice runs to complicated places. Train myself, despite the stress levels and damage to my spirit, to be able to drive anywhere.

Then, I borrowed a GPS device for the first time and everything changed. I could suddenly go anywhere, with almost no stress to my system.

GPS is a band-aid, and I know it. But I don't care. I’m still a lousy navigator. But when I got my own GPS that problem ceased to matter. Band-aid. I would much rather slap a band aid on a problem like this, and know I can move on, (literally), then go nowhere until I beat those skills into my head. I can now drive anywhere I want to, without fear, just by pushing a few buttons.

What are your minor problems? What short cut band-aids can you use to solve them?