Hi friends,
I realized the other day that I’ve gone into those horrible kind of spirals where in order to have the freedom to do your creative work in peace, you need to bring in more paying work, and the more you do the paying work, the less time, energy, and focus you have left for the creative work. Namely, novel.
It is still one of my biggest battles. Until the novels start making money, I can’t afford to work on them exclusively, and all I want to do is work on them exclusively.
Sigh.
So, I find myself running around in circles, trying to bring in more projects that help with the income, and with each new money-making venture, feel that I’m stepping one step back from the fiction.
This struggle is a common one, and if you, too, have been finding yourself swinging wildly between love and money projects, here are some things that I’ve done all through my career that might help you:
1. When you bring in projects with the idea of generating an income, make efficiency a priority. The faster you do the “money” work, the more time you leave yourself for creative work.
2. You might as well get used to the idea of writing your books and novels in small pockets of time because, unless you have a trust fund, a partner who pays the bills, or have recently won the lottery, you’ll need to do what the rest of us do, which is to write in 10 or 15-minute sprints. Don’t downplay this idea. You’ll be surprised at how quickly these small bits of time can add up to a decent word count.
3. Setting aside an hour a day to work exclusively on your creative work is a good idea; setting aside a day of the week is even better.
4. Don’t let the work you love become another task on your to-do list. Look at the time you spend with it as something that you’re doing for fun, something that you’re doing for yourself, your growth, your creative well-being, your future. If you start looking at it as just an extension of work, another item on the never-ending to-do list, then what is even the point?
5. Finally, start learning how to make your creative work your happy place. If you find comfort, solace and joy in your creative work, and use it as a means to escape the world, then you will come back to it more often, and find meaning in it no matter the commercial result.
For many writers, when things get difficult, writing becomes difficult, too. For me, it’s almost the opposite. For me, when things get difficult, I write more, because for me, writing is an escape. It is where I go to find peace and solace. To feel most at home.
This wasn’t always the case. I trained myself to first, see it that way, and then practice feeling it. And now it’s instinctive.
One day, hopefully soon, there will be no distinction between the writing you do for love and the writing you do for money. In the meantime, I hope some of the things I’ve shared will help you get both done.
I’ll see you again tomorrow.
Cheers,
Natasha