Life Lately No. 3

Interior, my room, night. 7:15 PM. I pace around my room, which is my office, bedroom, and studio. Lifestyle writers and so-called experts write in articles that it shouldn't be the case. But do I really have a choice? I'm a freelance creative and I can work anywhere. Problem is, how do I get enough work on my own for 1) my savings and 2) establishing my name in the creative world? I'm grateful for the people who recognize my talent, really, I do. But I need to push myself more–and out of my comfort zone–if I want to attract the greater things in life.

Cut. Enough of this pretentious, Jughead Jones style narration. Let's get back to my true way of talking, which honestly, is more awkward and just a little less pretentious than Cole Sprouse's character.

Creative Dilemmas

Lately, clients are coming to me here and there. It's either through Upwork jobs I applied for or through my friends and contacts. I've had both good and bad experiences alike so far. However, freelancing isn't like a 9-to-5 job where you get paid every 15 days. I'm a starter so I have to send cold letters and approach clients on job boards myself. Also, I could ask friends and small business owners if they need help as well.

Let's start off with the bad first. This client wanted me to copy two illustrations "in [my] own style".  Let's just say the pay was... for a naive starter. It wasn't worth it thanks to endless revisions despite following their instructions word per word. "It's still not what I want!" And after explaining to her what watercolor actually looked like, we ended the contract. The pay wasn't even complete because of having only 50% of the job done. I told this to a friend, a fellow freelance artist, who had the same mistake early on. She told me to ask for 50% upfront next time, and maybe find jobs that don't treat artists like shit. I guess that's good enough!

On the bright side, my best friend was kind enough to offer me projects for the publication she works in. It wasn't the kind of work you'd see on my art Instagram randomly because I prefer drawing people and animals. Drawing food was not my thing, but I do admit it was fun. Now I can't just share any photos yet. But I'll share the photos as soon as the issues are released! And speaking of drawing, there'll be more art-related posts soon.

Health Issues

This year was such a bad one for my health, in all aspects, I can name. I'm recovering pretty well by the time I type this, honestly. Took me about eight months to fully accept and wrap my mind around 2017's surprises to me. I'm not gonna lie, a part of me wishes things went better. But where is the part where I earn wisdom XP if it did? I actually like the person I've become since then. 

Last March, I was hospitalized for excessive hydration. Yeah, that was actually a thing. It blew up on me because hydration became a stress buster... It's not supposed to be like that. Other factors included work (and blogging) stress, bad sleeping quality, and the low amount of salt in my blood. Too much water diluted my blood, so I switched to Pocari Sweat and Gatorade when I worked out. My old diet was pretty low in salt as well before, so I switched to keto. There was a big risk in it too–I may not eat carbs as much as before, but oh boy did the food taste really great! I don't mind missing out on carbs if the food tasted like the recipes I selected.

Mentally, I kind of broke down myself this year. I got dumped last March, and my mind and heart were messed as hell. The First Breakup depression does happen to anyone, especially the dumped. Even if I felt alone for five months, I was just going through what others went through before. They weren't kidding when they said time heals wounds. Meeting friends and making new ones did help me move on, as well as working on my art and figuring out my next move for work. Working on myself made me learn that single is not a bad thing as much as those hugot Twitter accounts shove it in. Also, I'd rather be alone and happy than be stuck in a one-sided relationship, thanks.

Blogging

Since I mentioned how shit my posts are for the past few months, I'm making up for it! I went to cool places, did fun activities, and I forgot to share them all. But I'm back on making content plans, on making this website a great portfolio and blog space... I've got my niche down already centering on the freelance creative lifestyle, art as work & hobby, and just beauty / travel entries I'm up to share with you. But we'll see how that goes!