veronica_rich | I've hit the wall, I think ... (Reply)

I am stuck in a rut, creatively speaking. I'm not depressed about it, just confused and rather frustrated.

Since I was a sophomore in high school (18 years ago), I've pushed myself and had no problem doing so. High grades, doing well in jobs, career, trying to pay off debt - all things I've managed to keep up with with no slowdown. Until the last year or so.

It's been a major struggle to motivate myself since about October 2003. The problem lately is that not only do I not feel motivated, I don't even want to work.

I got out of high school with great grades and test scores; I put myself through college on scholarships and made up the difference by working, most times having three concurrent jobs while carrying a full load of classes each semester (and working summers too). When I got out, I got a job with a small newspaper and did very well for several years while I was there, but it eventually came time to leave and move somewhere bigger, so I took a job with another small paper in a big town. It didn't work out, and I left over a year later because of the dicks in management. For the past 4 years, I've lived off freelancing and working part-time jobs; for quite a while now I've been working about 20 hours a week (more if you count the damned commute) in addition to cranking out 3-4 articles a week.

I simply don't have motivation any longer. The stuff I write now will win me no awards - it's standard fare, I am in no position to do bigger and better for the places for which I write, it seems. I've been pretty good at making the most of what I'm handed these past 4 lean years, but the steam has run out. I have to blame myself, not the places for which I write; if I were truly creative, still good at what I did, I should be able to make opportunities of my own. The part-time job I have pays the bills and my boss appreciates me, but it's not even close to what I want to do for a living and there's no future in it, so it's a dead-end.

I think part of it is having to be my own cheerleader, constantly. I have nobody to tell me I'm doing well, and I admit it does help to have that. My first editor was a great fellow who would find at least one good thing to say to me each week - how he motivated himself, I'm still not sure. The second paper, I was constantly struggling against management to do the basic job for which they'd hired me - it sounds illogical, but that's the way it was. (At least I had an "against" to motivate me, there, even if it did make me miserable.)

I'm not miserable now. I'm more dead than anything. I used to never have any free time or a social life, and that damn near burned me out. I still don't have a social life, per se (can't financially afford it), but I don't think one would help motivate me in work. I don't have much time to reflect on what it is I really want to do, as it feels like I am constantly either working or coming up with ideas for what to write in a particular week, and I have to meet a certain quota in order to pay my basic bills (I'm not paid much in any writing job I have, either - the only way to make more money is to write more articles, usually for more places).

This isn't a whine, I guess. I just need to figure out what to do with my life, and I don't really know what that is. I don't have any feelings on the matter ... and that's the problem. Nothing seems to matter, really.