Posted on March 28, 2008
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Common freelance career killers and how to get past them!
Working freelance requires commitment, dedication and courage. Early in my freelance career, I wrote dozens of articles and feature pieces, but never sent any to an editor for fear they weren’t good enough.
I would get disillusioned if my work was rejected, running back to a ‘regular’ job, and quite often, working away from an office, I’d get lazy or easily distracted.
And although I work differently today, from my own past experience and that of other artists, I discovered four habits that can break a freelance career.
Lack of discipline - A writer must everyday write!
If you were to undertake a survey you would find that writers successful in their field, have a tendency to write everyday. Regardless of whether it’s for work or pleasure - they write. It’s like body building or maintaining fitness, if you want to tone and remain toned, you have to discipline yourself to daily exercise.
A creative journal is a valuable tool for developing a ‘unique voice’; exercising writers muscles; and creating the write habit of regularity and routine … without the two ‘R’s, a freelance career will die pretty quickly or never get launched.
I write on average between 2000 to 5000 words every day. Some of this is for commissioned assignments much of it is observational writing ie. I capture the movement of the world around me, particularly nature; or I capture the nature of my thoughts.
Practice will of course improve writing skills, but daily writing does much more than that - it stimulates creative juices, that’s why veteran writers continue the practice. Daily writing gets us into the habit of turning up at the page, and breaks the ideology that we must be in a particular mood, state of mind, or special place, to be able to capture words.
I have had many people comment on the quality and quantity of work I produce - the key is discipline. But not discipline in the sense that it’s a hard slog. Regular writing, particularly creative journaling is fun.
Inspiration for work is often backed up in my mind, before I reach the page, as soon as I pick up a pen, words start spewing onto the paper with very little effort. I don’t have to sit and ponder too much, on what I want to write or how I should write it. Regular daily writing creates a habit similar to auto pilot - you pick up the pen and the words start to flow.
In the beginning it doesn’t much matter what you write as you practice, start by writing the ‘crap’ out of your head. Even if you have to sit for an hour and write - “I have nothing in my head to write about - gosh this sucks”, just practice moving your hand and putting words on the page. I write two to three pages of ‘crap’ every morning before the real juices flow. It’s like removing the scum from the top of a stew, and during the act of removing - you develop ‘write’ habits.
Habit develops from doing the same thing repeatitively - practice, practice and more practice. But forget about the ideology that practice makes perfect, throw that notion out the door. There is no such thing as perfect. Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes quantity, and over time quantity becomes quality. Quantity and quality are what a freelance writer requires to survive - not perfection. This brings us to our next freelance career killer …
Perfectionism - You’ll never get it write!
Perfectionism can be listed with other forms of addiction and self-abuse. Perfectionism does not produce good work, interesting work or uniqueness - most often it produces the opposite; it can place us in a state of paralysis, because the fear around not getting it right, or not being good enough, means we either never get started or we never finish.
Competitiveness is a relative - feeling that we have to do better or be better than everyone else, is a companion to the dis-ease of perfectionsism. If we combine competitiveness and perfectionism, it is almost sure to cripple our creative nature and ensures that our freelance career does not blossom in an enjoyable way.
Freelance work is inspiring, light and fun, that’s why so many creatives choose to do it, but if we become a slave to perfectionism there is nothing enjoyable about freelancing.
When writers nurture this dis-ease they very rarely succeed because perfectionists tend to get trapped in the habit of never starting, never finishing or never submitting. Instead they can waste endless hours and creative energy constantly criticising their work, or comparing themselves to others.
Underneath the mask of perfectionism hides the pain of fear - fear of criticism, fear of failure, fear of never being good enough.
If you fall into this category - let it go, because the reality is this: we will never be good enough, smart enough or better than everyone else: someone will always appear better in our eyes. As artists, we are bound to receive criticism - deal with it! Take the constructive criticism and use it to learn, change and develop as a writer and let the rest wash over you. If need be, buy some thick skin.
Lack of confidence - Write to feel good about Self!
This obstacle is a natural feeling when we launch into something new - it comes from lack of experience and time. Remember when we first started driving a car? Not sure about you, but I didn’t feel to damn confident, however time and practice behind that wheel, has me looking - dare I say it - like a pro!
The wonderful thing is this: as we overcome the first two career killers - lack of discipline and perfectionism, our confidence will begin to flourish. Confidence definitely arrives over time and with practice; the more we discipline ourselves to write daily the more confident we become at our craft and the more willing we become to test the waters outside our square.
There is a correlation between practice and achieving goals, when it comes to building confidence and self-esteem: set small, achievable and measurable goals eg. today I will spend one hour researching my topic and then write a 500 word summary on what I discovered.
It’s also a great practice to investigate classes, workshops or local writers groups, get involved in anything that supports you as an artist and helps nurture your talent. If you find a writers group too competitive, leave it: remember career killer number two; there’s better places to invest your time and energy. As artists we need to surround ourselves with people and events that support and nurture: it’s our priority to take care of Self.
Lack of commitment - Make the write choice!
Make the decision to commit to your success - you deserve it. Commit to a number of hours each day for both personal and career development.
Personal development may be daily exercise, meditation or yoga. Perhaps you might like to join a 12 step program to deal with that perfectionism! Personal or spiritual development is the core to success in all areas of our life. If we don’t sit well within, we have difficulty in the outside world. When we have trouble dealing with our life’s circumstances - it’s pretty difficult to feel inspired to achieve in our career.
It helps to feel content and at peace in our ’self’ or ‘being’, it gives us the courage and strength required as writers, to reveal our work in what can be described as an intimate way. It takes a lot of courage and commitment both to self and our career to hang our laundry in public places - so to speak!
Then of course we make the commitment to our career. One of the freelance writers I employed for a special publication, commits a percentage of her earnings toward re-investing in her career. She does this by way of books, courses, workshops, and travel to venues to listen to topical speakers. This is a good practice to follow.
Commit to your career by investing time, money and energy into obtaining further knowledge and skills. Also think of areas outside of writing that will enhance your career, for example: page layout and design; image manipulation; or photography. Don’t be afraid to cross pollinate, the rewards are astounding on both a personal and professional level.
Perhaps the best advise is make the leap - don’t wait for conditions to be right, go ahead and get started; believe in yourself, in your success and don’t be afraid to take risks.
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