Contract Deadlines vs. Writer's Block

A reader writes in:

I've been reading your blog and would love your opinion. I've been writing for years and have placed in a few writing contests, but have only just recently considered freelancing. I go through the job postings on Elance and see tons of jobs I'd love to bid on, but I'm scared to take the next step. I'd love to pick up a few contracts to see if I can do this professionally, but every time I think about actually bidding, I get a huge knot in the pit of my stomach. I know my skills are good enough, but I worry about getting halfway through a project and coming down with a bad case of writer's block. Is this a sign that I'm not cut out for the freelancing life?

Thanks,

D.K.

Hi D.K.,
Thanks for writing, and agreeing to let me post the answer.

Writer's block. Yikes! The mere mention of it sends chills down every writer's spine, regardless of what they write. Writer's block doesn't care if you're a technical writer, a fiction writer, an article writer, a dissertation writer, or a poet. It's an equal opportunity jerk.

And it is a valid fear on your part. There are some days when a writer is just empty. The muse has packed up and left without leaving a forwarding address, and the writer is left with nothing but a blank page.

It happens. So instead of worrying about it, let's look at how to deal with it when it rears its ugly head.

Writing for yourself is wonderful. You have the luxury of waiting for the muse to capture you and carry you away, and if that means weeks between pages, then that's okay. Writing for someone else on a deadline is a whole different world where you can't wait for the muse, and if she doesn't show up, you still have to produce quality stuff. Some days it sucks.

So what do you do when that happens? You have a 5 o'clock deadline for ten pages and you're stuck on page one. You can't walk away and wait for inspiration to strike, so you just do it. You write the worst garbage of your entire life. Sheer crap. And you get it done.

Do you hand the crap over to the client? Of course not. But you do write it, and you don't worry about how bad it is (and it will be bad, trust me!). Then you walk away. You leave it for a bit. Go for a walk or soak in the tub, or surf the net, or whatever you do to numb your brain.

Then you go back to it.

And you'll find that it isn't as bad as you thought it was. It's not great, but it's not nearly as awful as you imagined. And it's done. So now what's left to do is edit.

You see the muse never actually leaves. She's always there. It's our brains that get in the way. She's on the pages. She was there all along. And it's so much easier to fix something that's finished and raise it to a solid level than to stare at a blank page because you're expecting perfection to pour onto the keyboard.

So, to get to the heart of your question - does fear of writer's block mean you're not cut out for the freelance life? Not at all. It tells me that you have a good work ethic (worrying about client needs before you even land them), and that you set the bar high for the quality of work you want to deliver. These are the exact traits needed to succeed in the freelance world.

Expect to write tons of crap. Don't fool yourself into thinking you need to be perfect. Embrace your bad writing! Every good writer on the planet turns out mountains of bad pages in their lifetime.

All you need to turn bad writing into good is a little talent and a good red pen.



image by LunaDiRimmel