Getting motivated

I’ve been in kind of a funk lately with my writing. I’ve been working on my Web site — making seemingly endless modifications and additions — but I haven’t felt like starting any new writing projects. Which is weird, because I have these fantastic new clients — Green Diva Mom and Trails — that I’m really excited about. I want to do a good job on my assignments for them so they’ll keep giving me work, but so far I’ve been putting things off. I think a large reason for this is I don’t have really large quotas or strict deadlines for either of these clients. GDM just wants 2 articles a month, and Trails, because it’s part of Demand Studios, simply offers up a list of assignments that I can go snag whenever I want. And I know I work best with a definite deadline to get me going.

I think another reason for my procrastination, though, is some sort of fear of failure — because I want to do such a good job, I start feeling like these assignments are going to be too hard (I know they’re not) and I get scared and start doing quizzes on Facebook instead of conducting research. I know if I followed my own advice that I outlined in my Want to Freelance posts about the creative process, I’d realize that the assignments aren’t scary or out of my league at all. I just need to get going. (I think for next week’s WTF post I’ll write about conquering procrastination.)

Today I am feeling excited and inspired again, in part because of an unexpected four-part assignment from AltGlobe, which will be a challenge, but a fun one. In order to get those four posts planned and researched, I need to get started on the assignments that I already have on my plate. So tonight I have skipped yoga and plan to write, research, and brainstorm until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.
First though, a few more of those tweaks on the Web site. There are still some pages lacking content, but the site has been live on the Web for a while now, so I may as well reveal it. If you haven’t seen it already, please meander over to the new KarenEisenbraun.com and let me know what you think! The “contact me” form, though not too pretty at the moment, should be functional.

Cheers!