Apparently the universe has decreed that I am spending an extra day in Toronto, because when I tried to board the train yesterday I found that my ticket mysteriously read MONDAY, February 23. And the earliest they could arrange to get me home at that point was 3:00 today anyway.
So I am perforce taking my remaining vacation day for the year and spending it chilling with my frighteningly brilliant sister, eating a whole lot of pakoras, and, of course, writing like a madwoman.
My dismay and heartbreak, internets. IMAGINE THEM.
My sister draws for a living. She is also in school full-time for graphic design. And on top of this she has her own epic projects percolating on the back burner. We were talking yesterday about how you manage to wedge your own stuff in around the cracks; she was bitterly discouraged at how difficult and anxiety-making her own stuff had become when for clients she could confidently hash out concepts and refine them without any trouble.
So I am perforce taking my remaining vacation day for the year and spending it chilling with my frighteningly brilliant sister, eating a whole lot of pakoras, and, of course, writing like a madwoman.
My dismay and heartbreak, internets. IMAGINE THEM.
My sister draws for a living. She is also in school full-time for graphic design. And on top of this she has her own epic projects percolating on the back burner. We were talking yesterday about how you manage to wedge your own stuff in around the cracks; she was bitterly discouraged at how difficult and anxiety-making her own stuff had become when for clients she could confidently hash out concepts and refine them without any trouble.
It's so easy to get sucked into #4 with your own stuff, because you care so much about it - if it's not coming easily, you must be a total fraud, a hack, a sell-out who will spend forever chained to a desk churning out mediocre nonsense for other people.
Here's the thing: your own work? It's still work.
It's just that the client is you.
Here's the thing: your own work? It's still work.
It's just that the client is you.
Ever have one of those days where you really want to draw and you go to start and then WHAM OH LOOK EVERYTHING YOUR PENCIL TOUCHES IS CURSED
— Zélie Bérubé (@zibliedraws) February 22, 2015 After sleep and talking with @metuiteme and Indian food and a multivitamin I am feeling a lot better.
— Zélie Bérubé (@zibliedraws) February 23, 2015 Among the things from said conversation that struck me is that for some reason I feel way too emotionally invested in work I do for myself
— Zélie Bérubé (@zibliedraws) February 23, 2015 Staring over my own shoulder being like "THAT'S NOT RIGHT" while I've barely even started working? I'm ACTUALLY my worst client.
— Zélie Bérubé (@zibliedraws) February 23, 2015 Kameron Hurley has an excellent post about the virtues of her day job writing corporate copy. The environment in which I write for pay is much less cutthroat - probably downright cushy by comparison, actually - but there are still deadlines and clients with expectations and stakeholders to negotiate with. And there are always going to be those people whose input you just have to roll your eyes and run with, because, to quote the post mentioned above, "you're a professional."
You get used to finding a foothold in an abstract idea, drafting text around it, noodling around with it until it works, having it come back for a shift in emphasis, and then again to be cut down by half because it turns out there won't be space for the French version otherwise. It makes taking three or four tries to sort out a scene in a novel and then finally axing it or moving it and having to readapt it all over again look reassuringly normal.
This from Kameron Hurley is also spot on:
Writing is a job, for me. When you get to work at 8am at your day job and your day job is writing, well...you come to work and you write. Having a day job in marketing and advertising actually trained me really well on how to hit deadlines and write to spec. No one ever comes to work where their job is stocking vending machines and says, "Well, I really need to warm up my stocking-vending-machine brain." They just get to work.
(Almost more reassuring, coming from her, was this:
You get used to finding a foothold in an abstract idea, drafting text around it, noodling around with it until it works, having it come back for a shift in emphasis, and then again to be cut down by half because it turns out there won't be space for the French version otherwise. It makes taking three or four tries to sort out a scene in a novel and then finally axing it or moving it and having to readapt it all over again look reassuringly normal.
This from Kameron Hurley is also spot on:
Writing is a job, for me. When you get to work at 8am at your day job and your day job is writing, well...you come to work and you write. Having a day job in marketing and advertising actually trained me really well on how to hit deadlines and write to spec. No one ever comes to work where their job is stocking vending machines and says, "Well, I really need to warm up my stocking-vending-machine brain." They just get to work.
(Almost more reassuring, coming from her, was this:
Working on a Thing, feeling overwhelmed by Impostor Syndrome. Fake it til you make it, my friends.
— Kameron Hurley (@KameronHurley) February 23, 2015 We're in good company!)
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