Being Me is the Only Thing That Works

You may have noticed my slight absence from the blog. Let me update you on what's been going on around here.

Finding a job wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. At this point, the freelance writing landscape is so dry that I was looking for full time work instead of part time work. Though at this moment is doesn't matter--I don't have part time or full time employment. I'm not being super picky either. I put warehouse/factory work on the bottom of the list, but it was still an option until I found out that the one position I was interested in required using heavy machinery (not for me, thanks). I tried retail, and apparently they were all filled up, even after the great back to school exodus. I don't want to get into a commission only deal, which is 100% of the emails that CareerBuilder sends to me. Office work really hasn't panned out either. So... I'm back to the drawing board. A job will pop up eventually, but it's getting harder and harder to even bother in this location. I still believe relocation is the answer for me, even though it's probably not feasible.

To get my mind off of things and to get back into the business side of life (and get this blog rolling again), I started reading about different types of blog posts, what you should and shouldn't write about, etc. Then I realized that on the Don't list, I'm doing everything I shouldn't do. Some of the top Don'ts for professional blogs is starting off with a mention of a long absence (check), whining about your personal life (check) and then talking about your work-in-progress (check -- see below).

I felt utterly defeated until I realized that no one is policing my blog. If I want to whine, that's perfectly fine to do. If I want to tell my readers every little detail about a work-in-progress, I will. I have to be me, and I can't be anyone else. Even a professional version of me, if it just doesn't feel right. There's no point in using this only as a launchpad for shameless self-promotion if I don't already have an audience to talk to. And although I do feel sometimes it's necessary to discuss a current topic in the writing industry or give advice, I don't think it's appropriate for every post, especially if I have ignored my own advice (which, unfortunately, I do have a tendency to do). So, I'm going to keep doing what I do best, being open about what I want, mainly because I think new writers could get just as much or more out of reading my experiences that aren't about writing than the ones that are about writing.

Speaking of writing, not much has been going on. I thought that it would be much more liberating to spend less time writing for money and more time writing whatever I want to write, but when real world problems get in the way, I freeze. It goes way beyond writer's block. I could sit at the computer for an hour. Stare at a blank piece of paper for two hours. Then when I hit on an idea, I get it out in five minutes, then I'm frozen again. I'm trying to find more ways to get motivated instead of clamming up, but nothing much has worked so far. So it's all coming back to bite me. Even when I have plenty of time to write because I haven't got a job, I squander the writing time swimming in fear. So, for this week, it's off to find some coping mechanisms for all of this. I need take a step, whatever or wherever that happens to be.