As usual, the beginning of another month has simply sped by and I'm just kind of left wondering what happened. I can't believe we're already ten days into November. Really, I'm going to take too long turning around one of these days and it will be Thanksgiving. Such is life when you keep relatively busy, I suppose.
As you may already be aware if you ever check in with me at my freelancing blog, The Creative Cat, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time in several years, as I finally have time for it, at least in theory. I'd been trying for some time to get my entire client base to a point where everyone I work with is paying premium pricing for my content and earlier in the year, I finally succeeded. I've been able to cut my overall workload in half as a result, meaning I now have actual time for creative endeavors of my own.
I have to say, actually having time for something like NaNo in particular has been really pleasant. I'm working on a short story and poetry collection called Jar of Lies and so far it's going pretty well. I'm really happy with some of the ideas and think quite a few of them have some real potential. Others are just plain fun to work with, which is also OK. I'm a little bit behind on my word count at present, but it's nothing that I won't be able to easily make up this week. I don't actually have a deadline on the books for today, so should be able to make a nice, big dent in it this afternoon sometime.
I'm hoping that this year's NaNoWriMo event marks the start of some promising new things to come, particularly in regards to my becoming creative again on a regular basis. This whole content production and copywriting thing I have going on at the moment just isn't something that's going to be sustainable over the long haul. Sure, it's probably the one thing I ever set out to do that actually became successful in any real sense. It's also just like any other job in too many of the wrong ways and honestly speaking, I really don't enjoy anything about it. I'm not passionate about it in any capacity the way I once was about my creative writing. It's a living and that's all.
........
Quality over quantity has been my focus for close to a decade now. However, I'm just now reaching a point where I can kind of see that philosophy actually bearing fruit. I have fewer "close" relationships than I used to, but the ones I do have are actually meaningful and fulfilling for a change. They're finally more than just the other person calling all the shots and treating me however they please -- often ignoring me altogether one day, but demanding my immediate and constant attention the next. I feel like I'm actually valued as a person instead of as a project people are working on.
At this point, I'm actually embarrassed at the memory of how badly I once allowed other people to treat me -- family, old friends, and even business connections. The true nature of said treatment becomes glaringly apparent when people from the past come out of the woodwork fully expecting to stick me with the short end of every stick the way they always did before. Behavior that once seemed annoying but ultimately acceptable now seems disgusting to the point of being ludicrous and I just can't justify making time for it anymore.
It does make for some interesting story fodder though, so I choose to see it as such. Every great writer had a tortured past or a bunch of jerks they used to know once upon a time. I'm taking a page out of their book now and gleaning what I can from it all.
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