Wherein I admit to one of the ugly sides to being a creative freelancer

If I described my day to you, then admitted to you how Spoiled Like A Child Cranky I feel, you would just want to smack me. Even my pacifist friends? Yes. Even my pacifist friends.

Today I've thought a lot about all the things I once decided to go for, and then made my reality. The rhythms of my days are really good. Really Good. Still? Yea. Still, today I object to everything on my list. Because there's something else I keep thinking about doing. And the drive is a tricky one because the little spoiled voice in my head tells me that there are people who actually get paid to do this other thing that keeps wanting to be done.

Backing up for a minute. I feel compelled to tell you that I quite like the projects I'm working on. My clients are lovely and agreeable and interesting. Doesn't matter. Today it seems I want to make art that came from within my own brain, and not a client's. I want to paint things and write on things and tear things and put all those things together in a way that perfectly agrees with my brain, and then glue them onto a canvas in just the way I desire. It's almost like my hands are humming with this jittery compulsion to make something tangible that does not involve a computer.

As of this moment? Not a single person has ever offered to pay me money to create the kind of art I'm craving. And so it feels like play. My inner creative child is desperate to play today.

Well Miss Melody: It's about choices, isn't it?

If I want to collaborate on websites that will pay my bills and also design artistic masterpieces (It's my fantasy: of course they're masterpieces! Masterpieces!!!) that make my heart sing...? Yea. Maybe I'll have to get up earlier in the morning. Watch less TV, fewer movies. Say "yes" to a few less social invites. But the only thing that is standing in the way of doing things I want to do is the other stuff I do when I'm maybe supposed to be doing other things. (Still with me?)

It's okay to want to design something someone else isn't paying me to do, along with the tasks that make up my workday. But seeing as how I took the entire weekend off to play, and the number of hours I've actually devoted to billable work today is probably less than your own (so far) number of hours? It's time to tell that spoiled child to go sit down and stop whining. Just like my friends who go to work at places where other people check in to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, I have people to answer to, too. I'm grateful my work lets me have this freedom. And sometimes? Freedom like this is just harder to manage than other times...