Author: Kris Roley

I want to start this by suggesting each of us ask ourselves a question: Am I OK?

I know that might sound simple, and you might think that’s ridiculous, but I’m dead serious. I want you to ask yourself if you’re OK, and I want you to be honest with yourself about the answer.

The reason I’m talking about this is pretty straightforward, I have had to ask myself this same question, and my answer is “I’m not sure.” I’m not OK, but I’m not in dire straits or anything. I can only describe myself as being in some weird limbo state that allows some things to pass, and other things stick and drag me down a little bit for a little while. I don’t know if anyone can relate to this, but maybe you can. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lost my audience by talking gibberish, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Basically, I’ve spent most of my time in the company of my family or outdoors, far away from everyone else. The main human contact I’ve had is with people that share my last name. I have seen other people three times in the five months we’ve been in this state. The only time I can tell you I am in the company of other people for any length of time is on Sunday Mornings when we do the groceries. I have not done any delivery side jobs since the shutdown because I think it’s dangerous. I lost a job I absolutely loved at the end of May. I’ve been looking ever since. I’ve been doing freelance work, but it doesn’t replace my income. I wish it did.

Some of you will tell me that I’m acting like, as one friend has put it, a covidiot. There are a few people in my life that believe that this thing has been blown out of proportion, that it’s not as bad as the news has made it out to be, that it’s a big hoax, and that I’m a sheep. If that’s what you believe, you’re more than welcome to believe that. You do you. What I’m not going to do at any point is argue with people about this because that’s time out of my life that I’m never getting back, and what I have seen out of the arguments I’ve read or been a witness to is that the anti-maskers are all about demanding respect for their rights, but not willing to respect the rights of others. I’m not into recognizing your right to put me in a possibly bad situation, but I’m not going to change your mind, and you’re not changing mine, so let’s just leave it.

I realize that I will probably have to break my promise to myself that I will never take another Customer Service / Tech Support phone call, and I hate it because the second I take that job, I feel like I’ve given up. I have done many things, but giving up is not one of them. Still, coming to that conclusion has not done wonders for my disposition. It’s depressing, to be honest. I had a great job, and I want to keep doing it. I just have to figure out how, and I don’t have much of a plan as I have a bunch of ideas that barely string together to form a coherent thought.

As near as I can figure, what I need to do is post content every day and promote the heck out of it. I need to reach out to people and ask if they need something I can provide, like podcast editing or Voice work, for example. I think I’m going to create a storefront to sell my photos somewhere. I’m going to write like the dickens and get it submitted places. I would like to start making videos again, and that one seems to be the hardest button to button. I suffer from what I’ll call “Neistat Syndrome.” I just don’t think my life is that damn interesting compared to people like Casey Neistat or Peter McKinnon, and while I know I’m comparing myself to two of the tippety-top YouTubers, It’s still a thing I’m dealing with. I need to think about the format.

In the end, I think I have what Michelle Obama says is a ‘low key’ depression, maybe? I don’t feel bad, I just feel resigned to certain things and disappointed. I’m fifty years old, and that’s a factor. I indeed have more time than my parents had; there is a limited amount of time on the game clock. So I’ll do what I always do. Work, and try to pull off the seemingly impossible.

Today, I want to talk about freelancing. Not any particular line of work but the subject in general. Freelancing has enjoyed something of an uptrend lately; Lots of people were doing it before of course, but I suspect there are a lot more people doing it right now, partly out of necessity. For some, it may be how food gets on the table.

I’ve been fortunate to get a few gigs here and there, and things are working out. Did I wish I had a steady gig? Yeah. Do I wish I had, oh, I dunno, something with benefits? DUH. Am I just a little bit nervous that the Apocalypse is going to happen in a couple of weeks, and it’s all going to hit the fan? OH YEAH, TRUST ME. But right now is right now, and that’s what I need to keep a focus on. I hit the job boards every day and fill out a gang of applications, and then I hit Upwork and submit some proposals. Upwork, for the uninitiated, is a freelance job board where people post what they need, and you can submit a proposal to fill that job. If they select you, you have the gig, and you get to work. With any luck, you get paid.

I find myself wondering about the folks that are dipping their toe in these waters for the first time because I know how frustrating it was for me to pitch and pitch and pitch…and hear crickets. Contrary to popular belief, the worst thing you can hear isn’t “No”; it’s hearing nothing.

I am not going to lie to you, it took what seemed like forever to get my first yes, and before that first yes was several bites on the hook that I couldn’t reel in, but for me, the real frustration was in hearing nothing at all. Not a yes, no, hi, boo, f you…not a thing. To be honest, I have to tell you that I found it hard not to take it personally until I didn’t.

The reality check is that nobody owes you anything regarding this. They’re — hopefully — paying decent money for the result they want, and if they decide you’re not for them, there’s nothing that says they have to contact you to say “Thanks, but no.” it would be NICE, but they don’t have to do it. Once I got over that hill, it became easier to hear nothing, “No” became easier, and of course, “Yes” is just THE BEST EVER.

But let’s get back to the crickets for a second. It’s a buzzkill, for sure, and that’s where Mo comes along. It’s hard to keep going when you’re not getting anything, but that’s just momentum working against you. The overused cliche is running uphill, but it’s the most appropriate. You’ve got to spend that extra energy and dedication to keep swinging. Keep Pitching. Keep saying to the world, “I can make this for you”, and realize that you’re going to have to take no and nothing for an answer until that first person says “Yes,” and then the most amazing thing will happen. You’ll be able to show the world that one person said yes, and you’ll be able to show the world what you did with that yes, and someone will see that and add another yes to your pile. That’s when Mo comes around and starts working for you. “Yes” means results, and results attract more Yes.

I know this sounds oversimplified, and honestly, it is. But it has the benefit of actually being true! Ask any best-selling writer you can think of, and I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you some of the most hilarious and mind-boggling rejection stories before that one moment that changed their lives. How many actors and actresses, how many songwriters and musicians, how many artists were told they didn’t have what it took and that they’d never make it until they did?

We are on that same road, you and I. We’re on the highway to that town we’ll never work in again until we find there’s a house with our name on the door.

A question that is weighing on my mind lately is how much structure helps or hurts a creative. I was talking with a friend who, by all accounts, has mad organizational skills, and she runs a filmmaking business. There’s a lot of structure in her day that is taken up doing the administrative work that you need to do to run a business the right way, and she’s very good at that. However, she tells me that she spends so much time making the admin work and the proposal writing for grants and things she laments not being able to spend the time actually creating as she would like.

For purposes of comparison, I don’t have a licensed business; what I do is what I call a hobby on steroids. It could be a business. I spend so much time on the creative side that I don’t spend any time on the promotion or administrative side. So, I would be the polar opposite of my friend, as you can see. I’m sure there’s a third person out there that promotes like the dickens but doesn’t have anything created and likes the idea of calling themselves a business. Three legs on three separate stools, and every one of them is wobbly.

I’m about to say two words that I hate hearing, and I suspect a lot of us hate hearing. Time Management. We need to employ some of it. Now, I know the urban myth of the creative is some person who’s a night owl, who can’t hold a deadline with both hands, a bucket, and handles, who suffers and bleeds for his art, and haven’t we grown up enough to understand that this is simply not the case most of the time? I mean, I know one person who works all night creating clay yonis and selling gemstones on Etsy, but other than that, most of us who are creatives are day-walkers, probably with jobs. We have too much on our plate for any day, so we need to plan what those days look like. The problem is, we don’t. So, the thing that we hate doing is the one that gets put off until the Twelfth of Never.

Since I am home full time, I’ve been experimenting with time management. I block out three sections of time during the day for things. I get up at 6 am and have some quiet time before the rest of the house gets up and moving. I have a trial balloon of a project I’m trying for the first time this week that starts at 7 am, and once that’s up and running, I take the time between 7 am and 8 am to plan my day. The morning period between 8 am, and 12 pm is for new stuff. For example, this article was written during the morning period. I’ll post any blog articles, drop any podcasts or videos I’ve completed, and look at my idea pile for what I want to tackle next.

Then I take lunch and get out of the studio. If the weather is decent, I go outside and take a little walk. Generally, I take my earbuds with me, but I’m finding that this is one of those times during the day when I am by myself, and I’m finding the usual noises of being outdoors — I hesitate to call it silence — preferable. It allows me to think more clearly about what I want to be doing and not concentrate on what someone else is saying.

I return to the studio around 1 pm, and for my afternoon work period, I work on what I will call the ‘big’ project. The priority item that I would like to get shipped sooner rather than later. Right now, I have two such items, a podcast interview and a video. Both things require attention. The interview has a deadline. The video doesn’t, but I would like to get it done. So any items that require voice, or shooting, or anything like that will happen at that time. I work until 5 pm, then I shut everything down and get out of the office.

The third segment of my day happens between 7 pm and 9 pm when I do my social media for the day. I try to focus on certain hashtags. This is not posting my own work, I did that earlier that morning. This is social media outreach. I follow and commented on accounts during that time. At 9 pm, I head upstairs, put the phone on the charger, and wind down. Lately, I’ve been reading non-fiction stuff before bed. I’m out by about 11 pm if I’m doing it right.

Rinse, Lather, Repeat, as they say.

Now, there are days when I can’t keep to the schedule, if I have a Doctor’s Appointment, for example. I just don’t sweat those things when they happen because I find that getting discouraged by my schedule is the first step to not following it. As this is an experiment, I’ll be tweaking this as we go to find what’s optimal for me, but for right now, this seems to be working ok.

Time Management doesn’t have to restrict your creativity, and it doesn’t have to manage your time minute to minute. If you just lay some minimal guidelines down as to what you’re working on and when you may find that it helps move you forward with everything.

Over this summer I’ve been trying to build up some content for my website and let people know I’m open for business. I say I’ve been trying. I’m sure you well know that you can have good intentions to get things done and you get a good start, but then you poke your head out of your creative cubby hole and notice that there’s housework that needs to be done, and there are errands to run, and then someone needs you to do something else, and so on. So you do all of that and get back to the cubby hole only to find it’s 9 pm, and you wonder how in the hell did all that time get sucked away from you? So you wind down and try to get a good night’s sleep so you can get a good start tomorrow, and you know what happens. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

If you’re a creative that wants to go pro, the outside world trying to barge in is a real problem because your family members and friends may not realize that this is your job now, and it’s also possible that you may not realize this is your job now. It’s also possible you might feel guilty doing your creative things when you look around and see there’s so much to be done. I can tell you that I’ve dealt with all three of these issues, and in this time of isolation because of the pandemic when every day seems almost identical in a way, I find myself wondering if there’s a point to it. It’s easy to get discouraged. It’s tempting to quit. We mustn’t quit.

If we want to be professional creatives, we have to show up. We have to do the work if we want the reward, and we need to gently but firmly tell the outside world to step off while we work. I would bet good money that the people in your life would get very upset if you came to their job and interrupted what they were doing, yet that is exactly what they are doing to you. If you’re like me, you hate saying no, but the simple fact is we need to say it more often. It’s the only way our to-do list will be a priority over someone else’s.

The other person who needs to hear that being a creative is your job is you. In the book “The War of Art”, Stephen Pressfield talks about The Resistance, which is the excuses your brain gives you as to why you shouldn’t be doing the work. We’ve all heard them. The voice tells you that you’re not good enough, that someone else is doing it, that you should be something else with your time, that you’re missing the game, and so on. The Resistance wants you to give up, and we just can’t let it win.  Who’s the judge of who is good enough? Not the Resistance. Who cares if someone else is doing it? This creative work is the best use of my time; it’s time someone else learns to do the laundry. I can DVR the game. It’s not that important anyway.

This is our job now. We need to schedule it as such. Block out time every day to do your job. Right now, I’m working from 9 am to 12 on writing, I take a lunch break, and I work from 1–5 on the project I’m shipping. I don’t answer the phone, I try to avoid picking it up to scroll through Twitter or Instagram but I have to tell you, sometimes I fail at that. I wear noise-canceling headphones because I don’t want to get distracted, and I have some instrumental music on. I found some albums by Tycho a few years back, and I think they’re just about perfect for my work time.

I have made two rules about working in the studio: I only work in the studio, and I only work in the studio if I know what I’m going to be doing. Especially right now, it’s very important to separate work and life. I have not been very good at this in the past because the studio is where my Mac is. I bought some new living room furniture over the summer, and it would be a shame not to use it. At the end of the day, I leave the office, and I don’t go back in. Regarding the second rule, in the last part of my night I write down what I did today and where I left off. Then I write down what the next steps are on anything I’m working on. Sometimes, I’ve made a checklist for big projects, and I check off what I’ve done. I check my calendar for anything I have to do the next day, and then on the next page, I write down tomorrow’s plan. That plan is my ticket into the office the next day, and yes, I do think of the door as a checkpoint.

Other self-described ‘gurus’ say there should be some accountability built into your process. I agree to the extent that there ought to be some factor like a deadline to indicate some kind of measurement, but other than that I say we are grown-ass people who know what we should be doing. I’m not really a big fan of life coaches, mentorships, or accountability partners, so I don’t use them. If you feel you need a person in your process to hold you accountable or give you direction, go for it. My accountability is my ticket into the office, I have a deadline for the content I’m creating, and my reward for getting the job done is I go play on Instagram and Twitter for a block of time.

So, to recap, we’re creatives now. This is our job. We must tell everyone, including ourselves, that we have work to do. We need to schedule that time and not break it. We need to have a plan for the day. We need to separate work and life. We need to recognize we’re adults who have a job to do, and we need to do it.

You’ve decided to take the leap and step out on your own in this new iteration of the New Normal. Fantastic. You’re creating, posting, and wondering why nobody’s coming to see it. You built it, but they’re not coming. Why?

Well, let’s start with a hard truth. The only place “If you build it, they will come” works is in that movie. I don’t know how that got translated from a film about a baseball field into creative work or entrepreneurialism. Still, it’s the worst fantasy anyone can have when they begin this journey. Think about it; If that saying were true, we’d live in a world without billboards, commercials, print ads, and infomercials. I’m a child of the Eighties, and to say that my generation was a target demo is like saying a hurricane leaves things a little damp. They made damn sure we knew they built it. They went so far as to tell us they built it that companies made several cartoons solely because there was a toy they wanted to sell. That’s what I call effort.

I get it. I’m just like a lot of creatives. I love the creating part; I hate the promoting part. Partly because the social media people have convinced me there are magic beans involved, and I don’t have them, and partly because I hate being THAT GUY.

I was at a Christmas party for my wife’s place of work about ten years ago. While the party itself was just fine, I have very little memory of it that didn’t involve a person who was just there to hand out business cards and practically projectile vomit his resume at people. Once someone mentioned that I was a podcaster, I had a friend for the rest of the night. He was enough of a bad example that I swore that I wouldn’t be THAT GUY, ever. Instead, I think I’ve gone too far in the other direction, and if it’s happened to me, it must be happening to somebody else who is nervous about self-promotion.

So how do we, the nervous promoter, tell people we built something for them? Here are a few things that helped me get over some of the anxiety.

First, to get to the point that you can sell yourself, you need to have a good product. In the creative person’s case, that’s your writing, photos, video, graphics, crafts, or whatever you are shipping. There’s a school of thought in creative work that amounts to “The heck with it, ship it.”, and I don’t think that serves you as well as you might think. We lived in a world where “Good Enough” was good enough. I don’t think we live there anymore, and all the promotion in the world isn’t going to help if your product sucks.

Second, it’s helpful if you don’t consider it a sale. Unless you have a product or a service ready to go, you’re not selling anything, and even then, I wouldn’t think of it as a sale. I don’t think I have ever sold anything, and I never will. What I have done is educate someone to the point that they have decided to buy something of mine, and that process has lessened my anxiety quite a bit.

Third, how you educate someone is just as important. I’m a storyteller, so when I promote something of mine, I decided to take a prospect on a little journey. I’m not just telling them what I made, I’m telling them what led me to make it, and if they’re interested, I might even tell them how I did it. I’m not going to read War and Peace to them, and if I get the feeling they’re just polite for my sake, I’ll cut it short. It’s vital to get a good read on who you’re talking to because if you bore them to tears, you’ve lost them.

Third, don’t go low on competitors you might have, people you’ve dealt with personally or professionally, and not on yourself. I have witnessed a person promoting their podcast, and when another podcast name came up, the promoter went negative and lost that person immediately. Why? They were related to the other podcaster. If you don’t know who you’re talking to, keep it civil. Regarding self-deprecating, that can be funny at the right time. But if it’s all you do, you’re just going to sound depressing, and that’s a turnoff in any scenario.

Promoting your creative work can be nerve-wracking. I know. If you remember to make something you can be proud of, educate people about it by telling a story, and not going negative, you might find promoting that work a little less frightening.