Everyone who puts the pen to paper, keystroke to the computer screen and even in this day and age, the snapping of metal against the ribbon on a typewriter, will spend time admitting defeat in the craft once in a while. Learning to dust oneself off and start over again is a difficult skill to master. It has taken me years to develop enough confidence to keep going after falling hard and falling fast.

It actually is getting easier to overcome those moments of fallen grace. Why? Because I can take the next step to keep going and look ahead to the next experience. Learning is about looking forward.

Here’s the thing,,,

For years I used to feel really horrendously guilt if I did not write for days at a time, or even longer. Sometimes the great ideas would happen and that is as far as they would go. Every single person in this business has come up with seemingly brilliant ideas only to lose them to that lapse of careful continuity.

There are mornings that I do not necessarily end up working at the desk. I may start the day with a workout instead. Just something else to help me work continually in balancing out the life scales. Unknowingly, while working out the physical, the mental creative side is getting a equal run-through. If I am thinking of writing then I am working. My guilt levels were increasing because I felt like I was neglecting work. One of my greatest discoveries over the last few years has been very simple. I am better when I am working.

Technology has been helpful in this journey of improved productivity. It is still easy to just grab a notebook page and fill it with ideas to be visited later. On a similar level it is just as much of a breeze to type or dictate something into the smart phone for later transposing. You can speak into your phone for a few second and email the very words you speak to yourself. Creative sparks are easily saved and convertible into real on-the-page products.

ThinkWork can be just as intense and creatively rewarding as hitting those keystrokes and marking pen lines on the notebooks. 

I treat writing as a full-time job. Like many in the world of word-work, I hold down a day job while in pursuit of the passion. This is not a hobby. This is an art-form. A craft to be taken seriously.

A business that can present a bounteous amount of opportunities if you are willing to work for them.

So if you are really driven to work and write then lose the guilt. Being away from the page for a few days does not mean you are self-consciously abandoning writing. Think on ideas. Freelancers can think about the next project for a client. You can also think on ways to improve your own business strategies. Better networking. Better social media delivery to readers. Endless things that could take an endless amount of time.

ThinkWork