The Key to Preserving Your Creativity While Keeping Your Clients Happy

Freelance Writers are used to selling their souls to the highest bidder. Here’s how to make a deal with the devil and walk away unscathed.

It’s a cool, crisp afternoon in the golden days of fall. Vermilion leaves are cascading down outside your window, contrasting dreamily with the clear blue sky. As you bask in the gentle rays of the November sun, you’re overcome by a creative force older than time itself — but suddenly, you snap back to reality. Instead of working on your own projects today, you have two 1,000-word articles to dredge through for clients. November suddenly seems far less enchanting, and your dreams of getting lost in your own head, rattling away at the keyboard while sipping pumpkin spice tea all afternoon are as distant as the first day of Spring.

This is the price of the so-called freedom that comes with being a self-employed writer. What you gain in flexibility, you pay back tenfold in missed opportunity. And although the ability to start the workday at your kitchen table in your pajamas at 2 in the afternoon is nothing to sneeze at, you have to admit . . . It really is soul-sucking to spend most of your creative energy on client work instead of your own.

In fact, if you have a victim complex like me, you may even wonder if you’re wasting your priceless creativity on clients while your own ideas collect dust in the back of your head.