Where I Stand Today

I'm really trying to avoid throwing my hands up in the air and screaming. The reason I was in such a mood yesterday (if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you definitely saw it) was because the last significant writing client has left me. This client praised me on my work and always gave me good feedback, so the ending of the relationship so abruptly came out of nowhere. It also took 98% of my weekly income away.

Technically, this client and I only know each other as seven digit numbers through a job brokering service, though I am well aware of what website I was writing for, but still -- it's a shock to log in one day and see that you are suddenly blacklisted by the client (the broker company actually uses that word) and you get the dreaded "this client does not accept articles from you" message. Only last week I was promised by this client that I would be getting some more work soon. This is why it just doesn't make sense. And I cannot get an explanation even if I wanted one -- blacklisting prevents messages from being sent or received.

This is what I ran into all weekend:

To be fair, I still have royalties from past work plus a few great clients who are easy to work with and I work hard to do a good job for them. I just can't pay everything with those jobs.

So I spent yesterday looking for the usual writing jobs online only run into a wall of scams. These scammers are not even trying to be subtle anymore. What frustrates me the most is that it's been less that 48 hours since I stopped getting any work and everyone around me is jumping to the "quit and get a real job" speech. Usually they hold off a couple of weeks before that comes up. Not this time. I'm not taking it lightly either. I know that if I take what they consider to be a stable, decent job that I will never pick up my pen again. I would be done with writing permanently because it would be a waste of time. I would have real work to do. Which means I would constantly be frustrated because I would have all these stories that need to get out. If they thought I was unpleasant before... I don't think they would like the full-time employed me.

This situation is putting a damper on working with Camp Nanowrimo for the second half of the novel. I'm not inspired, even though I have an outline to follow. I don't really feel like it's a priority anymore, which I guess is proving a lot of people right that I need something more than what I have now. I just don't know how to get it.

What does this all mean? All of the stuff above was just ranting to get it all out. I'm NOT giving up on writing (I don't realistically think I ever could), I may have to move up my release date for the novel, and I am open to part-time work that's not writing related -- it just can't consume my life. It would also be great if that part-time work didn't involve pets or people. I'm allergic to both. ☺