Stuck or Stopped? Your Next Steps as a Freelance Writer
Freezing as a freelance writer is a real thing. We feel completed stuck on moving forward, stopped in our progress, and in an ever-draining tub of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, thinking we’re not good enough and never will be, and confusion on when, or if, we should move forward.
This week's livestream is going over what it looks like when you’re stuck or stopped in freelance writing, how to move forward and see progress, how to shrink Doubt Mountain down to Manageable Molehill, and how to get the pep back in your writing step.
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Stuck or Stopped? Your Next Steps as a Freelance Writer
So if you're feeling stuck as a freelance writer being in freeze mode or flight mode or fight mode, those things really happen. As a freelance writer, you end up getting in these situations where you're not really sure of your next step. You don't know what to do. You feel like everything is in the poop soup, right?
And I feel like these things are not talked about enough. A lot of times we talk about, uh, reaching better clients or making more money or, um, fixing our marketing or doing a better pitch or reaching out to editors and following up. But we don't really always talk about how it's. A thing where you get stuck or where you're, you're not really sure what your next move is, or you're just feeling like the self-doubt tapes and the imposter syndrome and the beating yourself up Hello, uh, is really kind of taking over.
So that's what we're talking about today and I think this is a really important topic. I'm gonna make sure I fix the camera 'cause we have our snug friend here, but it's like a little bit messed up. There we go. There she is. There she is. So we're gonna talk about that today and I think it's really important.
Um, oh, announcement before we get into stuff. Um, runway is open for enrollment until eight 10. So until next Thursday, runway is open at a super special price of 49 bucks. So if you've known the program a little bit, um, I ran it in March, but then I created a lifetime version so, Basically this version, the live version is me teaching every single day with you Monday through Friday.
Plus you get a live bonus masterclass with me on a topic of your choice. So everyone in the community gets to vote. Um, and then we all get to have this master class on a topic that people are looking for more information on. So, runway is open at 49 bucks. It's normally 2 49, so it's $200 off for the live class.
The lifetime one is, uh, that just that you get to keep everything right. But this one, the live one is 49 bucks, 200 bucks off. Go to mandy ellis.com/runway to check it out. It's open for enrollment until eight 10. So next Thursday, uh, right, yeah. Next Thursday, August 10th is the last day to enroll. And I know I'm gonna get this question, but I, I might, I'm probably gonna run runway not until March or April.
There is a slight chance of showers of runway in January, but I probably. It's probably more likely that I'll do it in March or April. So if you wanna join runway at 49 bucks, mandy ellis.com/runway. It's open for enrollment until Thursday, August 10th. Let's get to our topic. Hey Karen. Howdy. I like the howdy.
All right, let's talk about this. Okay, let's talk about number one. So number one thing when we're looking for here is what? What does it look like when we're stuck or we're stopped? So a lot of times this is that. I think from what I've seen in my own business and what I've seen with students is like you just let all of the internal garbage kind of take over.
So you let all of those negative thoughts, or you let all of the things like the self-doubt things or telling you you're not good enough, or that you'll never be good enough, or you can't compare to these other writers. Or that the quality of your work sucks or that you can never get clients like you really let those tapes in your head win.
So I think that's the thing I see the most is like a lot of people are letting their mind and these kind of running anxious thoughts and these running really like they're shitty thoughts or things that you tell yourself they just aren't true. They let those take over. So when those take over, then they kind of have this really frustrating situation where they're not really sure how to move forward.
They just get stuck in their tracks, right? They're just not moving anywhere. They're just in the same tracks. Um, and I think a lot of times that is just kind of understanding that the tape doesn't run your life right. You're gonna have a lot of thoughts all the time. You're gonna have all kinds of thoughts all the time, but we don't have to let those thoughts win.
I think this is something that I've talked about a few times, but I think, I know it sounds nuts sometimes when I talk about it, but for me, one of the things that really helped was to. Tell myself, like, stop it out loud, or tell myself no out loud. Because when I was in my head literally just vocalizing like, stop out loud.
I was like, oh, like there's other stuff going on. Like I would, you know, you just sit silently shitting on yourself, right? You're just sitting there thinking all these horrible thoughts. Incomplete silence. But then if you're like thinking these thoughts stop and you say it out loud, you're like, oh, there's other stuff.
It's a really weird thing that I started doing with myself just to make the tapes stop and for me to remember that like, all of these thoughts are in my head, it doesn't mean they're real, and it definitely doesn't mean that, uh, that they're my future or that they can predict how my business is gonna go.
So that's something I think is really helpful. Like when you're having a lot of thoughts, like say, just stop out loud or no, like sometimes if you say no out loud. You end up being like, no, that's not the truth. Or No, that's not a thing. Or, stop. Just stop. And you really kind of get yourself out of your mind and back into the real world.
Right? So that was the first thing I started doing, just to handle the tapes. The other thing is that I think this sounds crazy, but as someone who, like, when I get really anxious, I start just writing things down. So sometimes I will just write pages and pages and pages. Like sometimes I, one time I wrote like 10 pages or 15 pages.
I forget the number, but I was just really anxious and I just started writing. I. All of these terrible things that were gonna help happen. And then as I kept writing, I was like, well, the likelihood of these things happening is incredibly low. And then as I'm writing, I'm like, you know what? Now that I'm getting it outta my system, now that I'm writing it on paper, or if you wanna type it out, you start realizing like, wait a minute.
All of these things coming true at once are just, it's unlikely, right? If you write 10 pages of notes about all the horrible things that can happen, or all of your horrible attributes, you get to a place where you're like, wait a minute. Like this isn't real. Like this can't actually happen. Hey, flower power.
And you just kind of, you're just like, wait a minute, let's kind of recalibrate here. So if you are kind of dealing with a lot of stuff in your mind, I think writing it down and just seeing the wealth of thoughts in that you're going through these really negative trash talky, um, Like imposter syndrome, self-doubt, um, negative spiral kind of stuff.
You see the wealth of things and you're like, there's no way a hundred percent of those things can happen, right? Even if one or two happens, like I can figure it out. So I think just writing that down really, really helps. And it's also a way for you to get moving forward. So getting these things outside of your brain, outside of like marination station of your mind, I think you can actually see that the co like the amount of things, like the tornado of thoughts in your mind is just a tornado.
You start seeing like, there's so many thoughts. Of course you can't move forward. Of course you're stuck, of course you're, you know, doing all these things that are self-destructive or not helping you, you know, move into the career that you really like. So I think a lot of times we're, we're dealing with the tapes, we're dealing with a lot of thoughts in our mind and we're, the last thing here I wanna mention is the comparing.
I did so much compare and despair and I still do it. There's plenty of times where I just fall in the pothole of compare and despair, so it's not like I'm immune to it. But I do think a lot of times writers compare and despair and they end up getting stuck or they end up not moving forward 'cause they're like, oh, I'll never be like this person, or I can't write about this because of this thing, or my pitch will never be accepted or blah blah blah.
Um, what did I miss? Hi Vicki. I always love the wave Vicki we're talking about, we're at the part where we're talking about what it looks like to be stuck or stopped. So that's what we're going over now. So we're going over like saying stop out loud or saying no out loud. When you're kind of ruminating in your head, if you say something out loud, it kind of takes you outta that.
And two. We're going over writing down all of your negative thoughts, and when you see the wealth of those thoughts, you're like, there's no way a hundred percent of those things can come true or even are true. Karen says, I call it spinning brain, like a vicious cycle of negativity over things I can't control or things I think might happen drives me crazy.
It totally does. Yeah. And it is, it's exactly like, um, the spinning wheel, right? Like on a Mac it has a little colorful wheel when it's like, hold on, I'm thinking. So yeah, it's totally a vicious cycle of negativity and it does drive you crazy. That's the thing, is we need to focus on what we can control.
And there's also this idea that I think is really helpful in like, if I, someone said this, not me. Someone else said this where they said like, if beating yourself up worked, it would've worked by now. And that really changed a lot of my own thoughts about it. Like if beating myself up worked, it would've worked by now, right?
I would've been way more successful after decades of beating myself up, right? It's just not the case. Beating yourself up doesn't work. It just, uh, SAPs you of all your motivation. It keeps you stuck. It keeps you stopped from moving into a business you like. And I think that that's just something that is like a, like, think about that.
Like if you were beating yourself up, hold on, I have to cough. Okay. If you are beating yourself up, you know, let's say for most of your life, let's say a few decades, right? Several decades, and you're not where you wanna be, obviously that's not working. So if we can spend all this time beating ourselves up, why can't we spend time not beating ourselves up and cheering ourselves on and doing things that kind of help build our self-confidence rather than tearing it down, right?
So sidebar on that, but compare and despair is something I still do. So comparing and despairing is like, you keep looking at other people's work or other people's clients or other people's income or their lifestyle or whatever, and you're like, I will never have that. So then you just fall into despair and Yeah.
Karen. Exactly. If beating yourself up worked, it would've worked by now. Right? That's a, that was an idea that really changed kind of my mindset. Hi, vena, welcome. So when you're looking at other people's stuff, I feel like I kind of, the switch that I made was like, this is possible. Instead of looking at someone's stuff and being like, I'll never be able to do that.
Um, I am not good enough. I suck at everything. I'll never be able to fix these things. I'll never get faster. I'll never do to blah, blah, blah, whatever your, whatever your tape is. I started saying like, wow, maybe I could do that. 'cause someone else did. Right? I switched the tape in my head from compare and despair to like, oh, it's possible.
I started looking at it as like, oh, it's possible for someone to do that, or it's possible for another writer to do it so I can figure it out. Like I can get there. I think that switch is really important. Compare and despair just totally shuts it down, right? It makes it seem like it's a hundred percent not possible that you can't do it, all that stuff.
But if you switch it to, oh, someone else could do it, so maybe I can too. Just giving yourself the possibility that you could win, right? And get things done. That really opens up a lot of doors and it gets you kind of back into being motivated to move forward. So I think those things are, those switches out of compare and despair.
And then back to your like, back to like a, okay, there's a chance, like there's a chance it can work out. Eventually what ends up happening is we're going from like 0% chance of it working out to maybe there's a chance to then after a while of living in, maybe there's a chance. Then what ends up happening is you get to a place where you build a lot more confidence.
So that's what it kind of did for me. I feel like a lot of people are like, no, just go from A to B. Just go from like negative stuff to positive stuff. And that just didn't work for me. I needed like a chaotic neutral. I needed like a middle place where I could kind of kind of still shit on myself, but kind of believe in myself.
So for me, that middle place really helped me get to a place of being more confident. And to quiet a lot of the tapes in my head. So instead of comparing and despairing, I gave myself the chaotic, neutral middle ground of like, ha, you know, like, I kind of suck, but like I probably can do it. And then you kind of move more, like you spend, you know, 80% of your time in like, I know I can do it, I know I can figure it out.
Every, you know, it's possible 'cause somebody else did it. And then 20% of the time you're like, I'm a dumb dumb. Why did I eat all that fruit from the dumb, dumb tree? Right? That kind of thing. So I think kind of understanding all those things and really giving yourself a neutral place, like a kind of a middle place between the two is I think more helpful in making the stick to it's possible and being confident in yourself, more permanent.
I, I find that a lot of times for me, when I was trying to just go from like negative tapes, just to switch those to positive, It just became a disaster for me. Like I just couldn't, I was just like, I can't go from like A to B. Like I can't go from completely negative co completely positive. I need some kind of weird, excuse me, weird forestry middle ground where I kind of have to find my own path and I have to let myself have both negative and positive thoughts before I can switch to mostly, you know, negative.
And that's a, or mostly positive, right? Mostly positive. And the other thing is that you're going to have negative thoughts. That's something that I think comes with moving out of your comfort zone, right? So when you're moving outta your comfort zone and you are getting into a place where you're doing hard stuff, you're learning how to work with different clients, you're learning to work on different types of content, there's always going to be these negative thoughts.
That's kind of part of getting outta your comfort zone is kind of overcoming those mindset roadblocks, right? So every time I get into something new, I, it just becomes, it becomes like, I get, you know, these thoughts again, it's not like you completely erase them. Everybody has them, right? Everybody has them, like athletes, right?
When athletes have a few bad races, or they have a few, you know, terrible games or matches or whatever, they, they have negative thoughts. It's not like they're like, this was just a bad one, right? If it keeps repeating right, then they're like, is this gonna be it? Is this the end of my career? Am I really bad?
Right? Everybody at every different level has these as they grow and change and get outta their comfort zone. I think the management of that is the important part of moving beyond, right? Getting through the, the freeze thing or the flight thing, right? This is kind of handling our thoughts, but also understanding that like the wealth of these negative thoughts, like the probability that most of them will come true is just not a thing.
Um, and then last thing on this one. Um, oh, you know what, actually I'm gonna put this in two. So let's talk about two, but then also let's do a little snark update 'cause she's down there. Hold on. Okay, let's do a little snark update. So, there she is. She looks so cute. Okay, so let's talk about, I know she heard me say her name.
She's like, hello, it's me. Uh, so here's the thing. Charlotte is off the drugs. She's off the drugs. We've been telling her she's been on drugs for a long time. So she's off the drugs for her teeth. It seems like we were worried she had an infection, but it seems like she doesn't. Do you want a snack? Okay, I hear you making grumbly noises.
So she seems to be doing a lot better. She's still like, not super enthusiastic about um, eating, like everyday eating, but she's getting better. And, uh, she made like a cute little growly woo noise this morning that she hasn't made in a really long time. So it seems like she's doing better and, uh, good girl.
So she's able to eat kind of crunchy stuff more now. Good girl. And she seems like she's doing a little better. So Charlotte's kind of been through a lot, right? We lost Bo a a couple months ago and that's been really hard on her. Uh, and 'cause he was her buddy, you know, she was with him pretty much most of her life.
Um, we picked up Charlotte from, uh, a p a here in Austin, and she was about three and a half, and now she's almost 11. She's 10 and a half now. So she spent seven years most of her life with Bo. And, uh, him passing away was really difficult for her. So that was one thing. And then she had this dental, right, her dental where she got four teeth removed and she was really sensitive about eating.
Good girl. So she's still really sensitive about eating. Um, she just, it seems like things are getting a little bit easier, a little bit better. She's kind of getting back to being a sassy woo machine. So, She's, you know, she's, we've all been having kind of a rough few months, but she seemed to be getting better.
Yeah, feeling a little better. Yeah. Good job. All right, let's move along. Okay. Let's talk about, um, two. So here's the thing. When we're moving forward and seeing progress, this is about kind of sometimes just doing it in spite of your feelings. So a lot of times for me, the biggest motivator is a deadline.
If I have work and I have a deadline, that makes me move forward. Like, if I just sit there and do nothing and I don't have any deadlines or I don't have it, you know, stuff to do, that's way worse than if you're kind of at least moving forward, either sending pitches or Lois or you have current client work where you're just like, I don't have time for these thoughts.
I don't have time to stay stuck where I am. I have to do this deadline. The deadline really kind of like, Puts a fire under your butt. Karen says, our new puppy was named Bo by the breeder. Um, we changed it to Taz because Bo and no, were confusing him. Oh, you know what? We made that joke all the time. Taz, I love the name Taz.
Number one, two. We joked, um, that we, so Bo was named Bo. It was the same spelling, b o um, we, uh, Tommy's sister actually named him. And uh, so anyways, we always joked that Bo, he was named Bo because we just told him no all the time. 'cause he was just naughty all the time. So we always joked that he was named Bo because that was the only name that was like, like, no.
'cause all we did was tell him no. 'cause he was always doing something naughty. That's funny. Okay, back to the topic. Um, I know, I see you. You're so cute and snuggly. You're so cute. And s girl. So as we're kind of moving forward, deadlines really help, right? But I know that a lot of times when we're stuck in this phase, it more has to do with just getting clients, right?
So if we're kind of stopped and stuck, you have to remember for me, I just kind of made it really small. I would make it bite-size. Can I send one l o i today? Can I find one potential client? Can I add somebody to the potential client list? Can I do a little research? I would just make it super bite-sized so that I was like, oh, I can do one thing right then if I'm doing all of these.
Yeah, we should have changed Bose's name too, but it just stuck. Um, so we always kind of joked about how many names we would've given Bo We've would've given him so many names. Um, in any case. So when we're moving forward, when we're moving forward, We are kind of making it into that idea of like, how do you eat an elephant?
Bite by bite, right? It's that, that idea of like, you can't eat an elephant in one day. You have to eat an elephant in bite by bite. Not, we're using this as a frame. We're not eating any elephants for real. But the idea is like something is so large, you only, you have to eat it bite by bite. Like there's no other way to do it.
And if you wanna think about it as like, um, like breaking tasks down into something that is manageable. So in order to move out of these kind of stuckness or these stopped places in your business, you have to do something. You have to remind yourself that every single day, You need to take a step forward in your business.
I don't care how small it is, I don't care if you feel like it's incon, inconsequential, just do something little. And the more you do little things, little things add up into big things every single time. Right. It's kind of like, um, it's kind of like, you know, um, I forget what it is, but it was like, uh, basically like McDonald's iced tea or sweet tea has like 26 teaspoons of sugar.
So like if I'm taking like just a few teaspoons of sugar, you're like, that's not that much. But if I do 26, you're like, that's too much sugar. Right? This is kind of the same idea. We're just doing a little bit of a teaspoon every single day. We don't have to eat a pound of sugar, we just have to do a little teaspoon.
Right. So we're breaking it down. Like, I don't care if you're connecting with someone on LinkedIn, you're following up, you're answering an email, you're adding someone, uh, to your potential client list, whether that's a publication or whether that's a, a business. You're sending a pitch, you're sending an l o i, you are setting up some technology.
You gotta do something every single day. The, I'm telling you, like, the more you do something every single day to move your business forward, the more confident you feel the quieter those tapes get, and the more you feel like you can actually actually do something in your business rather than get, than stay stuck or stay stopped, right?
So just little things. Just do something small. Um, I feel like a lot of times, this goes back to another idea is like writer's block, right? A lot of people like to talk about writer's block, and I am one of those people who just, I just don't believe in that. I just don't. I used to, for many, many years, I used to.
And then I realized that that writer's block is just like another idea that keeps you stuck. You're like, oh, I can't, I have writer's block. No, you have a deadline. Do it now. Like there's a lot of times where I was like, I don't know what to say. Doesn't matter. Write anything, literally write anything. Just get started.
This is something that I think a lot of times, um, writers who haven't really written a ton, they're like looking at a blank page. You should never be looking at a blank page. Okay. This is why a lot of our stories, like when, when you're working on journalistic pieces or research-based pieces or anything with.
Interviews from subject matter experts. You have notes, put the notes in, right? Make a structure, give yourself kind of an outline. Put your notes in, put some thoughts in. I don't care if you have no interviews, no research, no nothing. You should pretty much always have research. We should not be starting from the blank page.
There should be some kind of context for, from what you're writing from. But there this idea of writer's block, I feel like, is someone just staring at a blank page? That's not a thing. Even people who write books, right? People who write fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever. You're not starting with a blank page.
You're starting with an idea, right? You're starting with an idea from a for a poem or some kind of outline for a book or some kind of character thing. Write anything. Something is always better than nothing because I can guarantee you. And I tell, I'm telling you from my own work, there are lots of times where I've written an intro paragraph and I think to myself like, wow, this is the dumbest thing I've ever written.
And then I write the rest of the piece, the rest of the piece, the, the other, you know, let's say like 30% of it is fine, but that's what editing is for. Right? So we have to actually construct the thing so we then we can go back and fix the beginning. The beginning is always gonna suck. It's always gonna be the hard part.
It's always gonna be the place where you're like, I don't know what the fuck to say. Right? Always. Even now, after writing for more than 10 years, I hate intro paragraphs. They are, they are the worst. They are always hard because you really have to do a lot of work to get someone into the story. You really have to do a lot of work to have someone continue reading.
And it's, it's a lot to. Smartly and interestingly kind of almost summarize the piece or, or really draw someone in with a sharp quote or something like that. Like it's really hard to do. That's why people think writer's block exists. 'cause they get stuck in this intro paragraph garbage, which it's always gonna be garbage.
Your intro paragraph will be garbage until you turn the thing in, until you go through edits a couple times, until you kind of work out the rest of the meat of the piece. Because once you've written the rest of the piece, now we can go back and kind of fix the intro. 'cause we're like, oh, I know what the other 70 percent's gonna be.
Now I can fix the beginning 'cause I know what the rest is. Right. So like I, I used to believe in writer's block and this would keep me stop and stuck. 'cause I, I stuck. I look at a blank page, no blank page, no matter what you're writing. There should be an outline or some kind of set of notes or research or quotes or something to start with where I, I just think that's.
Poor writing. To start with a blank page. You need structure to, to your job as a writer is to relay ideas in this kind of like layer cake kind of way. Someone gets through the first layer, okay, now we layer on the second bit of information. Now we layer on that this is how they follow the train of thought, whether that thing is a chapter or an article, right?
So we, our job is to layer, if we're not having some kind of outline or some kind of something to grab onto and we're just starting with a blank page, you're writing and I've, I've seen this a bunch. It becomes muddied, it becomes confused. It's all over the place. It has no logical sense of taking the reader through.
And I'm talking to you as someone who hated outlines many, many years. I would never write an outline and it, I think it actually really hurt my writing. Now when I do an outline, I still do it bare bones. So like I will put the questions that I'm answering, right? That will be the outline. So I'll say, here's a question, right?
Here's a question I'm answering. Um, here's the four questions I'm answering in this article. And then I will put my research, my quotes, my stuff into those things. So the outline itself is like questions I'm answering. Then researching quotes, go in each specific section. And then sometimes if I'm doing a certain article, I'll put some quotes in the intro that I feel like are good.
But if I'm writing like a blog post, I'm still putting in questions I'm answering or things that need to be covered, then I'm putting in research or uh, information of some kind, right? That kind of helps you get through the process. I just think this, I. This is more like the, whenever I think of the blank page, I think of like the Carrie Bradshaw ver version of people Think like what freelance writers do.
We don't do any of that. That's not our life. Like, and there's a lot, right? Like Carrie Bradshaw, the whole idea like of that is right, that she's like a freelance writer, but she has a column and she doesn't seem to pitch anything except randomly. She pitches Vogue and gets something like every once in a while she does pitches, but she doesn't actually run a business.
She just writes a column, right? Which isn't really the same thing. So it's not like that at all. We, we are starting with structure. We are starting with information. This is why a lot of people get stuck when they work for clients for the first time. 'cause they're like, oh, I'm supposed to write a blog post about this.
Well go research it. Go read other articles. Go find a study, go find some kind of information to inform your article. You can't just write it from, you know, the, the electrical meat in your mind, right? It's not how it works. So for me, what no longer buying into the idea of writer's block and really giving myself a chance at success by setting things up in that doc.
It doesn't matter how shitty it is, at least it's organized, right? Then I can go back and edit it. And most of the time when I'm writing a, a blog post or an article or anything, case study, white paper, uh, content strategy deck, everything I write the first time is garbage. I do a garbage draft. This is what I tell my students, right?
Whether you wanna join Runway, which is open right now, right? I talked about that in the beginning. If you wanna join runway mandy.com/runway, 49 bucks, $200 off lifetime right now. So whether you'd wanna join Runway or the Wealth Lab, right? I tell my students this all the time, barf Draft, put everything on the page, put all your notes in there, and then just write it.
Put all your thoughts in there. If you get all of your thoughts outta your head onto paper, now we can actually move forward, right? We can actually get to somewhere and then we can edit out all the extra stuff when we go in to clean it up and hit the word count, right? Those things are really important.
I think that barf draft idea frees you from being like, this thing has to be perfect or know that idea won't work. It allows you to have, give and take and really let your article take shape in the way it's supposed to. Like you're following the information, right? Yeah. Electrical meat. I always think of my brain as like electrical meat.
I just think of like sometimes when I'm trying to, um, when I'm trying to like remind myself that all the thoughts in my head are crazy. I'm like, these thoughts are coming from electrical meat. Why are we, why are we listening to electrical meat? Business says, I can't agree more. Just last week I thought I had nothing to say.
Then I opened my notes and actually looked at them and the answers were right there. Exactly. I think about this all the time. Hi Lou. Woo. Thinks about this all the time too, right? Woo. You think about this all the time. You look like you've been planted, like you're finally growing out of the, you're finally growing out of the blankets and into, into the world.
You're so cute. I think about this all the time, right? We have notes, we have information. We have ideas. This is like when someone starts writing and they're like, how do you do this? Well, if you haven't done any research into your topic, that's a big problem. I don't care if your topic is really, really basic.
Even if you're writing a, a blog post that's like 500 words, which is not good. You should be writing longer than that. 'cause 500 words is not good. But even if we're writing a super short blog post, let's say 600 words, your, your material needs to be based in like, fact, right? Your material needs to be based in what's going on.
That means you need to do research. You need to read other pieces. You don't just like randomly go off into, into nothingness and just type a bunch of stuff with no information. That would be crazy, right? That would be crazy. That wouldn't be a very good article at all. Um, I hate intros. I just, I hate them so much.
Vesna, I can't even, I, I, every single time, the, the place where I spend the most time is an intro. Pretty much. Like if I'm really struggling with an article, what ends up happening is the bottom 60% is fine and the top 40% is trash. So like my intro is 20% of that 40% usually. Right? Typically not always, but, and we're not saying like an intro paragraph.
I'm saying introducing like the, the article, like weaving in my points, right? So like, whenever I kind of do you look so cute. I can't believe you look so cute over there. Um, whenever I start that I know that like if I'm really struggling that the top 40% of my stuff is gonna be terrible. But at least if it's written and I can go back and edit it, it gets better.
But yes, the, the beginning is always hard. There is no magic bullet that will make it easier. Like there, it's just not there. Uh, Albert says writer's block is a fiction writer's phenomena. Uh, it's not applicable to freelance writers and journalists because you have to have the discip discipline and consistently write.
I'm gonna, I think that, so I started with fiction stuff, so I was in, like, when I went to school, I did a lot of fiction writing. And I still think the same thing is true that you need an outline. Like you can't just, you don't just write a book without an outline. And I just don't think that writer's block is a thing.
I think that's a fantasy. Right. Oops. Oops, sorry. I think that's like. A fantasy, whoops. To get out of the work you need to do. Um, and I think even with freelance, freelance writers and journalists, like I know I've struggled with it. I know other people have struggled with it as freelance writers. I don't think it's, I think it's still applicable because there's a lot of misinformation out there about, um, people writing stories.
And I think a lot of the stuff that we've seen, right, like e every time they tell a story, it's always someone sitting at a blank typewriter being like, gosh, why can't I write this Pulitzer Prize winning news article? Right. Uh, I think it does apply, but I think it's more like understanding that you need to have an outline and you need to have information, research quotes, some kind of stuff to work with.
Right. Okay. Yes. Electrical meat. I definitely, you can steal that. I'm not gonna tm it right now, but electrical meat is a good one. Um,
Yeah, I think it just depends. I think it depends on what you're working in. So like I did the same thing where like when I was working in school, I worked on fiction and then kind of moved into journalism. I think it just depends, like a lot of times there's this misunderstanding of how to construct a piece and a lot of people think you're just supposed to write it basically from memory, which would be nut town.
Um, you would need to have some kind of structure to follow. Right. That would be the writer's book thing. Um, okay. Karen says, I know there's a lot of comments in here that I haven't gotten to yet, so I'm trying to get through 'em. So Karen says, I just found you recently and got here last week and today I'm gonna miss the lives for a while, back to school on Monday.
She's a teacher, which I found you sooner in the summer. Well, Karen, there's a lot of stuff that you can rewatch. There's like, I've been doing this live stream for like, uh, Almost three years now. So there's lots of things that, that you can go back on. Um, and like, you know, there's, there's times where like making it live is just not possible.
That's totally fine. Um, but you can always come back. You can always come hang out when you have time off from being a teacher. I actually have a bunch of students who are teachers or like, who are leaving teaching to become freelance writers. Um, so yeah, just try to, I think the thing is like, um, you can watch 'em, you know, when you have time, but you can also submit questions, right?
That's something that I always say. So Karen, if you're working along and you're like, I have a question, or I want you to cover this topic so I can watch it later, go to mandy.com/question and submit it. So a lot of times I'll have people who can't make it live, but they'll submit a topic or a question and I'll come in here and do it.
So if there's ever anything you want me to cover, uh, feel free to pop it in there. Okey dokey. Um,
Yeah, you have to write the plot first, then you're writing the script. Yeah, there's a lot. Thank you. I'll put it in a poem. Okay, Vicky? Um, yeah, I think a lot of times the writer's block thing is just a reason. It's like another thing to keep you stopping stuck. And I don't think it's like, I, I don't think it's something that should be affecting you on your day-to-day, um, on your day-to-day as a writer.
And I think a lot of times when you're eating an elephant, right, when you're doing it bite by bite, you start realizing how much stuff you actually have to work with, and you start realizing what you can do to enrich a piece or to add something in, or to make something better and understand that like, I think this process too, right?
This is why a lot of people think they're good writers because they can write an email or because they wrote like a one page document one time, right? They're not, we are writers and we struggle with it, right? 'cause it's hard to do. It's hard to put the right words in the right order. It's really hard to weave in research and quotes and make everything, are you, is your foot stuck?
Make everything sound good. Here you go. Does that help? There you go. It's just really difficult to do, right? Even for writers, a lot of people think that it's sort of like a mechanic, right? They're like, oh, you've done this a hundred times. Just like twist the nozzle and it'll, you know, put the, put the engine back in, right?
Like it, it's not like that at all. We're not tweaking a car, right? We're definitely mechanics, but there's a lot more buttons to push. There's a lot more things to deal with and a lot more tools. So I think a lot of times, Um, it's just we are struggling with writing because it's hard to do. This is why we should get paid well for our work.
Other people might think they're good at writing, but we're good at writing. And it's still hard, right? It's hard because it's this, I always think of it as like a puzzle. Like you're looking at a blank puzzle where you have no idea where everything goes until the end. Like you put the puzzle together as you work, and at the end you're like, oh, it's a cat, you know, hanging with a balloon.
Right. Or it's like Charlie, right. The puzzle is Charlie. So it's, it's like there's a lot of these things that I think just are really important to notice, to get out of being stuck, to eat the elephant bite by bite to get away from writer's block and understand why you should charge well for your work, right?
Albert says, the only time I had a blank typewriter as a writer was when I had a, a snack or a lunch break. That's funny. Oh, if you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about building a freelance writing business, subscribe. Karen says, yes, I wanna watch some stuff from the past.
I intend to, oh, hold on. I intend to leave teaching in two years and wanna get my freelance going this year. Do it. But Karen, just remember bite by bite. Take little pieces as you go along. So like, learn how to do little things, right? Learn how to, sorry. Learn how to get your clients. Like, the most important thing I think a lot of freelance writers miss, is like, they're not understanding that.
Like, you don't have work if you don't have clients, right? So understand if you wanna get some publications right, send some ideas out whether you wanna work with more publications or you wanna work with business clients, what types of work you wanna do. Um, a lot of this stuff is covered in a bunch of different live streams, but kind of get a structure of at least like, what are you gonna work on?
Who do you wanna work with, that kind of stuff. Okay. Moving along to three. Um, hold on. Where did three go? There it is. Three. Okay. Three here. So I think I'm going to put them, uh, you know what, so let's talk about this. So what I have in my notes is shrinking doubt mountain down to manageable mole hills. So we're gonna shrink doubt mountain down to manageable molehill.
So as we're kind of moving along in this stock stuck or stopped thing, doubt mountain is so much bigger than the actual work you have to do, right? These manageable molehills are actually getting the work done. The doubts and the way you feel about yourself and your work and the frustration and the fear and the scarcity and like the low confidence that is doubt mountain.
And that's always harder to climb than actually doing the work, right? Right. Do you agree? Would you like to say something? She sat back up. She's like, gimme a snack.
I don't know if you can catch 'em. I don't know if I wanna throw 'em. You used to be, you used to catch 'em all the time, but I don't know if I want you to catch 'em with all your dental stuff yet. So anyways, when we're talking about this, this is kind of the same thing. Doubt Mountain is something that you climb over a very long period of time as you do the work, as you go through these manageable mold hills, right?
So these are kinds of you getting tasks done and then Doubt mountain. You climb it and you get to the top and you're like, oh, I didn't need to worry about any of that stuff, right? So think about it as like your manageable molehills are getting things done. Whether that piece is finding clients, like I said, find like a little bite every day, finding clients, connecting with people on LinkedIn, learning how to do your lois, your letters of introduction to businesses, writing a pitch, getting article articles published in your favorite blog or magazine.
Um, Working to move forward on increasing your rates, setting up your invoicing systems, your processes for doing all your stuff, all of those things need to be done right? All of those little tiny steps are the molehill that you cross Doubt. Mountain is like how you have to beat your own mind in order to do it right.
Doubt Mountain is like everybody has a different kind of tape running in their head, sorry, and Doubt. Mountain is this unique journey that you go on to beat your mindset blocks, the things that you tell yourself to keep yourself back or the things that you, um, Uh, that you think are really not helping you in your career or something like that, that you have to like move forward or the things that are really not working that you finally have to get rid of, right?
There's a lot of things that are going with Doubt Mountain. Think of Doubt Mountain as a very long-term journey. Okay? I still climb many Doubt mountains over the years. I still do it now. Right now, even right now, I have a bunch of things that like are up in the air that I feel really worried about. That is part of me dealing with Doubt Mountain, right?
It's, it's part of me dealing with all of the complicated things sometimes that, that go with running my freelance writing business, my coaching business, and the two courses that I have. Like, there's a lot of. Moving parts sometimes where everything just falls in the poop soup. And most of the time it's fine.
10% of the time it's poop soup, right? And it's climbing doubt mountain. But even when I'm doing that, it's about taking those little steps over time. It's like breaking doubt mountain down to manageable molehill, right? So these things are, instead of looking at this giant picture or looking at climbing all of Everest, right?
Even when you climb Mount Everest, you go through phases, right? You, you can't just like arrive and climb Mount Everest. It's not how it works. You go through like, um, what is it called? Like the, the thing where you get used to the altitude. Um, you go through like different altitudes. You get to base camp one and base camp this, and then this thing, and then you climb this.
There's so many different phases of climbing Everest that I think are kind of like running our business. We get to different phases and then we gotta climb the thing, come back down, right? Yeah, it does sound like a Disney movie escaped out Mountain. Maybe we'll do, maybe someday. So I think it's just kind of like, oh, and Albert says, uh, when I gave my last seminar, uh, the Basics in the past, one of my tenets is to advise writers to write at least 10 minutes minimum a day.
At least you're working and focusing on something. Yes. That can be super helpful. Just doing a little bit every day, a little bit of writing, just get, you know, keep the, the wheels greased. That can be super helpful. Okay. The poop soup is something I say a lot. It's just, I feel like that is a very easy way for me to describe, like how I, I'm just feel like I'm marinating in a bunch of shit.
That's what I feel like, like there's a lot of times where things just go to hell and you're like, God dammit. Like, why, why? Why is this happening right now? But this, the deal is you still have to get out of the poop soup. You still have to stop marinating in the shit. You still have to go take a shower and you still have to figure your shit out because if you just live in the poop soup, you don't get anywhere.
It just becomes this, this horrible life of like just devastation basically. So in any case, when we're moving to our, our off of like Doubt Mountain and the molehill, they, they work together. So as we're kind of getting through these doubts that are holding you back, we are getting over acclimation. There we go.
Um, we're getting over the like, Things that we used to be afraid of. These mini molehill, these like manageable mole hills that we're doing that's giving you the confidence to climb higher on Doubt Mountain, right? It's giving you the confidence to kind of move beyond these roadblocks. I think those kind of ways of thinking about it really help you get out of being stuck and get out of your, like your mental soup, right?
It kind of helps you be like, okay, I've done 10 tasks. At least I'm doing something, and eventually that moves to like actually getting on the train and getting a really good train going right? So it's more about like it's you have to build the train. Part of the part of it is building the train and then eventually people get stuck either with, it's the directions to build the train or it's like getting the train going where you have to shovel a lot of that coal or wood or how, however old your train is, I don't care, gas, whatever.
I usually think about it as like the train from like, uh, back to the future three. So I'm like magic wood. Um, so anyways, you get stuck somewhere along the way, but the deal with the train is that once you get it up to speed, right, it takes a while for a train to get up to its cruising speed and then it takes a while for that train to slow down right miles.
It takes multiple miles for that train to get up to its cruising speed and then it takes multiple miles for that train to slow down. This is part of getting over doubt mountain and doing the manageable mole hills, you cannot get the train up to speed immediately. You have to do it over a period of time, but once it's running, Then you feel like you can climb down mountain while you deal with these manageable molehill, right?
So you're climbing up down mountain and you're like, boop, you like hop over these, molehill those things build confidence as you go along. Those things make you feel like you can continue moving forward. It's the action that ends up killing. I don't know if you can catch it. I don't wanna throw it 'cause I'm worried that it's gonna hit you in the tooth and you're gonna have bad, like a rough tug.
So, um, it's all of these continual like basically steps in believing you can do it, that you then believe you can do it, right? You have to take the action in order to crush all of those doubts, right? You have to actually move forward and take action. That's the only thing that, that gets rid of it, right?
Yeah. Everest is a good analogy. Flower power says, I hate mountain doubt. I'm climbing it and it's hard. I think, um, what's also difficult is thinking that, well, if I was actually good at this, then um, would I be worried? Oh my gosh, this is so good. Okay. Flower power. I thought this to myself so many times.
So many times. This is actually a really good point. So a lot of times I was like, well, if I was a good writer, this wouldn't be so difficult. Well, if I was a, if I was good at, you know, sending my lois, or if I was good at finding clients or if I was good at this, then it wouldn't be so hard or times consuming or terrible or stressful or worrisome.
And that's just like straight up not the case. As I've written so many articles now that I, it took me a lot, hundreds, like I've written hundreds of articles and it took me like more than probably 200 articles, or maybe not 200, but many, like 150 to actually believe I could do it. And I'm hoping that that telling you this makes it so you don't wait as long as I did.
But there's this thing where like, you eventually outweigh it so much. You're like, I've done a hundred articles, like I can't be that bad. Right? That's what the thought that changed for me was like, I had done so many. That I was like, well, it can't be that bad 'cause editors still wanna work with me, and my ideas are getting picked up and I'm getting clients.
Like, it can't be that bad. Right? So that's the thing is like, you started this thing, well, if I was good, it would be this, but it's not true. Like it's just not true. You're good. You just have to start realizing that sooner. So like for me, it took so much stuff for me to be like, well I've, I've outweighed now, right?
Like, I've done this so many times, like hundreds of times that it can't possibly be that bad. Right? But that's the thing is like, it's just, that's not the case, right? There are lots of writers, many writers who are very prolific, whether you're looking at fiction, you know, journalism or fiction or poetry or whatever.
They're very prolific, but it takes them forever to do it, right? That's part of it. It's a hard process. It's not a matter of being good and it being fast. Good and fast aren't always the same thing like, For me, I really, there's a bunch of pieces that I'm really proud of and they have all taken way different amounts of time.
Some pieces I wrote in a day and some pieces, it took me like three weeks to do all the research and get all the quotes and put everything together and whatever. It just depends, right? That doesn't mean it, it's any better or worse. Those are still two pieces that I really love. It's not speed that determines how good you are.
That's what I think is kind of nuts, is like people are like worried about speed or they think that there's some kind of magic metric that if they hit it, they're gonna feel good and it's just not the case. You have to believe your work is good, right? And the cool thing about writing is that your work should always be getting better, right?
So if you can believe your work is good, now imagine how good it is in five years when you've been, or even a year, right? I look back on stuff I did a year ago and I'm like, oh. Poor you. That's not good. Right? So we should always be kind of pushing ourselves and with writing we can continually get better.
That's what's really neat about our skills is like the more you work at it, oh my gosh, you look so funny. The more we work at it, the more we, I. Sharpening it. The more we're reading and learning from other people in terms of structure or in terms of how to talk about something or descriptions or or style or tone, the better our work gets.
Right? And that's something that is like a, an iron sharpens iron kind of thing. So I think from like, this is a really important thing to remember as a freelance writer. There's no thing that's like, if you were X then Y would happen. That's just, there are people, okay? There are people I know who are great writers.
I've read their work and they just like won't get out there. They just like won't do it. They're afraid to do it. They're worried this thing's gonna happen. And they're great writers. There are people who I've talked to who are not great writers, who have written for a bunch of publications where I'm like, how did you do that?
You know? And I'm not saying their work is bad, I'm just saying like, I, I've read work from people who I think their, their, their stuff is better and they're not as far out there, right? It's more about trying, it's more about getting out there. Um, It's more about sending pitches or sending Lois or just like, you know, um, getting things out into the air instead of like leaving them in the cupboard.
But there's no kind of like, this is such a good thing because I used to think this all the time. Oh, well. So this was, this goes back to the compare and despair, right? Oh, well, if I was X writer, I would've already been in X magazine. If I was ex writer, it would only take me three hours if, excuse me. If I was so and so, um, then this would happen.
And another good example is, I think I've talked about her before on here, but, um, yeah, magic metrics. Um, I've talked about her before on here. So, Tasha, Ralph, Natasha, Ralph, uh, r e l p h. So Natasha Ralph. Um, she has a newsletter. It's called The Word Ling. If you guys haven't signed up, you should. But, um, she wrote a, an a.
Her weekly newsletter to this week, and it was about how she had 21 deadlines from clients. And I, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I, I don't want that, I don't wanna do that. Right? But that's something that energizes her. So if I start comparing, like when I was writing 20 articles a month, I was like, I'm gonna die.
Like this is not for me. Right? But some people end up right, have 21 deadlines a month, and that energizes them. They love that. They love that super snappy like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, turning in work. That is not me. I'm not fast. I'm not a fast writer. It's like I, that just doesn't work for me. I would rather work on a content strategy project that's multiple months long.
I would rather work on a few reported articles. Um, that for me is a better cadence. But if I was sitting there comparing, right, like, oh, well if I was as good as Tasha, I could have 21 deadlines a month, right? That's crazy. I don't want that. Right. I, that's like kind of how I started burning out several years ago.
Right? So we don't wanna get into this if I was good that I would do this, right? Even me comparing to writers, like Tasha I think has been writing for many years more than I have. But even if I'm comparing that stuff, that's not gonna help me. Right? I'm not saying like, oh, you know, if I was as good as her, I should be doing this.
And her work is great. Her work is fantastic, right? But it doesn't mean that we work the same way. Right? So these things are really important to kind of think about. And I think this is a great point that flower power made is like when we get into this trap of like, if I was this, then I could do this.
That's just not the case. And it's sort of like your business goes through these metamorphosis, right? Oh, and another good thing, I think that this springs up too. Um, actually I think Albert's comment is, is uh, is a good one. So the same thing with like, Mount Everest, right? People don't just go climb Mount Everest.
The thing about, I've watched like multiple documentaries recently on this, that's why I like am bringing it up. So there was, there's these different things, right? In order to climb Everest, you have to be a, a really good, I was gonna say adept. You have to be really adept at several different types of climbing.
You can't just be a good rock climber. You have to be good on snow and ice. And they mentioned all these other things. So like, just to do the alpine stuff, right? When you're trying to free climb like Albert's talking about, um, it's, it's just like a way different thing, right? Free climbing is way different than all the equipment you need and the oxygen right, that you need for Everest and Everest.
You have to have a bunch of different skills in order to do it. And the other thing about like. Everest is that people, it's an amazing accomplishment, but it is incredibly difficult, right? It, it, there are so many skills and things you need to know how to do, and you can't do it alone, right? In order to climb Everest, you go with a Sherpa, right?
These people who climb Everest all the time, they're professional Sherpa. That's their job. You can't just like go do it. I mean, I guess you could, but it'd be, I actually, I don't even know if you can anymore, but, uh, you have to go with a Sherpa. If you don't go with a Sherpa. That's bad idea. Um, but there's a lot of different things that we kind of forget about, right?
We forget that if you're climbing Everest, you're going with someone who's trained that you, you have to train. You can't just like show up and be like, let's do it. Right? It's not, that's not how it works. There's all these different things you do and these are the same things that you would do to get over your mindset humps, right?
Get over these kind of roadblocks and kind of move forward. And someone doesn't just like train forever. Everest in a day. People can train years. To go to Everest. People can train months, like depending on where they are in the, uh, climbing slash um, health scale. Right? It's really important stuff to remember.
Okay. Yes. Hello? She says it's time for snacks. Um, flower power says related to this, um, hold on a second. Um, related to this, how do you determine the difference in your work between something hard that's a challenge you can overcome versus when you may not be a good fit for this specific project? Ooh, flower power.
Great question. So the thing about this is for me, this is what I tell my students. It's like a smell. I know that sounds crazy, but there's this thing that happens with both clients and your work where you have to do enough repetition to kind of get it. But once you get it, it becomes apparent. It's like a smell.
So what ends up happening is you do work and you're like, okay, this is difficult. Whatever. But eventually you get to the point where you've done so much repetition, and it doesn't have to be hundreds of things. It could be like 20 things. And what ends up happening is that you are starting to realize like, oh, this isn't hard because the topic is hard.
This is hard because either my client is expecting something different or I'm not a fit for it, or this isn't working for me. This is a smell you develop over time. You, it's like burnt toast. And I'm not saying a literal smell, but I mean, like, it strikes you as a smell. Like I know now when I'm working on something, I'm like, this is not a fit.
Like I had something, um, earlier, like before, um, a client I was working with where I was like, this is not a fit. I've had this many times, this is just like a recent example, but I knew it wasn't a fit. Like I was just doing the work and I'm like, what they're asking me to do and how they're asking me to do it, and this is really confusing.
I, I don't think this is the right fit. So this is an experience thing. This is something where, this is kind of like a fall down, scrape your knee kind of deal. There's going to be times where you work on a project and it falls through and your client's gonna fire you and you're gonna be like, what happened?
And then a few months later you're gonna be like, oh, I should have just left that project because it wasn't a fit. This is something that is like seasoning, a cast iron pan. You have to kind of do it over time and you kind of have to understand how to do it right. It's something that is based on feeling out who's right for you.
A lot of times this comes from writers finally understanding who's the right client for you versus, um, versus the, hold on one second. Um, Versus work that's really difficult. Like there's work that you do where you feel like you're making progress and you feel like you're getting somewhere and you're like, okay, I just know it's a lot of research.
I know that I have to be diligent about putting these quotes in the right place. I know that this is something complicated. Versus like, you kind of, as you write, you feel like you're fighting an internal battle. Like there's a lot of times where I work on something where I'm like, I know this isn't right.
Like I'm fighting this internal battle where either what my client's asking for, I'm like, that's not right. We should be doing it A instead of B. Or I have conflicting values on the content where they're like, we just wanna do this. And I'm like, you should do this. Or, um, you're, you start fighting these internal battles of how you do the content or what you're talking about, or, or the structure of the piece or what the goals are.
And then you start developing that burt toast smell where you're like, oh, this project just isn't for me, like this client. Is not my client. They should be with the writer who's the right writer for them. So this for me, it, it, there's like, I wish that I could make a magic thing and, and make it so that other writers don't have to go through it.
But from what my, watching my students and watching and like my own business, this is one of those, like, you have to have experience. Like there's no way that I can tell you whether something or not is a fit for you unless you have a very specific situation, right? So flower power, you came to me and you're like, Hey, uh, the, all these weird things are happening.
And I'm like, well, one in two are kind of normal, but three through six or weird, this client's probably not a fit for you. Right? So these are things where you're gonna have to fall down, scrape your knees, get fired sometimes. We've all been fired. I'm pro, you know, there's still gonna, it's not even firing.
It's just like the ca the contract gets canceled. Um, but there's going to be these times where, You're just gonna realize it's not a fit, but it's something that you have to get through experience. It's something that you have to work with clients. It's something that is, is a, it's a, it's,
I, I, the only way that I just think about it is like, it's developing a smell. It's just like burnt toast. Like you're just like, something's burning, right? Like, it's not, it's, it's just an immediate thing where you're like, something's on fire in this house. Uh, and it's, it's something where you have to learn your own stuff.
And it's the same example, right, that I gave of my friend, her doing 21 deadlines is energizing for her. She likes it. When I was doing that many deadlines or a little bit above, I just like wanted to die. I hated it. It was not for me. And that was something I had to learn through burning out. It was something where I had to fall down and scrape my knee and figure out like what works for me and what doesn't.
So there's times where you have to figure out a lot of times, who's a good client for you and who's not. This is something too, that I talk about with my students, right? This is something we go through like a bunch of like, who's your ideal client? What do they do? Are they relaxed or are they people who are to the point?
Are they people who, who communicate on four different platforms or only email you, um, are your ideal clients, people who, um, you know, like they, they have a relaxed timeline, or do you like to do work quickly or, uh, are your ideal clients people with these long-term projects? Or do you like to do smaller things?
Like, there's lots of things that we learn in the process of like who our ideal clients are, and then we apply that to our business, right? We apply those things to how we're going to move forward with that, right? Mm-hmm. Um, Albert says, uh, my experience with freelancing for more than 22 years is that it isn't about pure talent, but the ability to consistently, to be consistent couldn't basically consistently survive.
So that means being able to be hired, published, and then paid. I think that the consistency piece is that that's the, the thing, like the reason that I'm here is because I didn't give up. Like there, there's lots of times I've wanted to give up. There's lots of times I'm like, this is too hard. I'm not right for this.
My clients hate me. I'm sucking at my work. There's lots of times I've wanted to give up, but because I didn't give up, I get to do cool stuff. Like talk to you on this live stream, right? I get to do cool stuff like, come on here and, and bring my dogs. Right? And I get to do fun stuff with Charlie. And when Bo was here with Bo, right.
So I feel like this is just kind of like the consistency piece is also getting over. All of the tough stuff. Right? The consistency piece is also like kind of our number four here is like getting the pep back in your step. So hold on, let me switch numbers so we have it tracked. So putting the pep back in your writer step, a lot of that is consistency.
A lot of that is just like Albert said, it's like you have to keep moving forward, right? Regardless of the feel. There's lots of times where I'm like, this isn't gonna work. I should just give up. I should just quit. Right? And especially when I burned out, right? Especially when I burned out, um, in 2018 when I was like, I'm gonna go work at Dairy Queen.
I don't know why I said that. It just, I don't, I don't know why. Um, but I just wanted to quit everything and it's. Part of the process is like sometimes putting your feelings aside and getting stuff done. We have lots of thoughts and lots of feelings and sometimes we need to put that to the back burner to get it done.
I'm not saying sacrifice your mental health, and I'm not saying go into burnout town. I'm just saying that sometimes when you are feeling a lot of self-doubt and a lot of imposter syndrome and a lot of negative self-talk, just turn the volume down a bit and get to work. There's lots of times where that consistency, ability to turn the volume down on negative thoughts and move forward, that really helps.
I'm not saying I'm, I'm of course not saying sacrifice your mental health. I'm not saying do anything crazy like I did. I'm not saying like burnout. I'm saying that like there are times when we get so consumed with our thoughts. That's actually taking away from our ability to do stuff and we need to give that basically like that power and that electricity back to getting stuff done.
That's how we're putting the pep back in our writing step, right? Is that consistency, that ability to move forward. And this is another weird thing, right? Is that, um, yeah, keep your, keep your nose peeled for burnt toast. Yeah. This is another thing I think is really important is like your, my, my, every time I wanted to quit and I kind of like started over was a really important thing for my business.
So every time I wanted to quit and every time I've wanted to give up, it's changed my business a lot. I've decided that there's things I can't keep doing or things I don't wanna do, or different ways I wanna run my business, right? And then that changes how it works and I build a better business. So for me, a lot of times I'm one of those people that like, I have to fall down and scrape my knees and, and get bloodied and bruised in order to make a change sometimes because I'm like, I'm like, this isn't working, but we should keep doing it.
Right. And I've learned a lot from that over the years. Right? I've done that many times. But a lot of times when you get to that place, you just kind of have to look at your business. You kind of have to look how you've been doing things and review that and move forward and make changes. Sometimes that's the impetus that you need to kind of do that.
PVIS six says, I love Charlotte. I think Mandy is successful. You have so much great knowledge. Thank you. Thank you Patty. Here's Charlie. She decided to ow she's decided to lay back down. Charlie, you wanna snack O? You want a little treat? Dto? Yeah. Do you wanna do a little high fives for everybody? Can you do a little high five?
Just a little one. Yeah. Good girl. Good job. We haven't really been doing as many high fives just because she's been kind of having a rough time with her teeth and she hasn't been like that. Interested. Can you show them belly? Can we try belly? Yeah. Kind of belly a little bit. Good girl. Good job. She's such a cutie.
Um, the other thing too, I think with the pep in your writing step is just like, just realizing it's part of the process. There's always gonna be a time where there's going to be times throughout your writing career where you're gonna feel stuck and you wanna stop and you wanna just kind of like quit, or you just feel like you can't move forward.
That's just like tires in the mud, right? There's very rare times where people just leave their car and they're like, oh, well I lost my car in the mud. It's forever gone. Right? That there would be rare instances where you can't get the car out, right? You call the tow truck, or you get a piece of wood, or you use a piece of carpet or a jacket to get the car out of the mud, right?
You kind of have to be inventive in how you get it outta there, right? Or you get somebody to come and pull you out. But this is kind of, part of it is I always kind of imagine as a car stuck in the mud and you're not just gonna leave your car there and abandon your car, right? Like very rarely is a car lost to the mud, right?
So, um, I think that this is just part of the process. There's gonna be times that are tough and we gotta get through those. Um, there are gonna be times where we have to like, cut down on the mental chatter. There are gonna be times where we are, you know, in the poop soup and that's just part of it.
Sometimes you're just marinating in the poop soup that just, I, I, you know, that's just, I've been stuck in the mud many times, including recently. Including recently. There's, there's like stuff where it's just a lot sometimes and it's, uh, it's just kind of this taking little bites, doing little bits of stuff, getting myself organized and instead of marinating on the couch, you know, watching the same movie 65 times, which I definitely wanna do lots of times, uh, I have to kind of take these little steps forward and I have to remind myself that it's not forever.
That's something that I think is really important is like nothing. None of these things are forever. Lots of times when I'm in the poop soup, I'm like, this is it. I'm living in the poop soup. But it never lasts. It's never this, it's, it's never a super long process, right? Even if the poop soup lasts years, it eventually stops.
You have to make different choices, right? So you start realizing the longer the poop soup goes on, you're like, something's off, right? I need to make different choices. I need to do an analysis of my business or how I'm running my life, or how I'm dealing with stress, or how I'm dealing with mental health, or how I'm dealing with things I haven't dealt with in many years.
Or, you know, there's a lot of different questions that we have to ask and. It is hard. It's not fun, it's not a fun process, but sometimes you have to do it in order to move forward. It's something that you, it's like, it's like a reckoning, right? You have like a reckoning where you're like, all right, this is, you know, I can't live like this anymore.
I can't deal with this. And you kind of have to move forward, right? You have to answer the, the tough questions. Um, and I feel like there's a lot of, like, one of the reasons that I think for me, I've grown a lot in the last 10 years is just I keep asking myself hard questions, and I don't always have the answer, but I'm at least willing to kind of entertain them, right?
I mean, I am willing to entertain the hard stuff, or I'm willing to fix the things that are broken, or I'm willing to just be in the poop soup. And the, the more that I push myself outside my comfort zone, the longer I can handle being in uncomfortable situation. So in the beginning it was like anytime there was even remotely, a little bit of uncomfortableness, I would freak out.
Now I can be uncomfortable for months and I'm like, okay, well we're, this is gonna be all right. So it doesn't last forever. The uncomfortableness is part of being out of your comfort zone, but there's also an adjustment. So kind of look at that. What would you like to say? Would you like to add any positive, any positive words?
Charlie, would you like to tell? Tell the people some things. You're like, I would like some snacks. Oh my gosh. You're gonna do a high five. Yay. Good girl. Oh my gosh. We've been really starved for high fives over here. Just because she's been having such a tough time. Can't believe. We just got some, can you do some high fives for everybody?
Good girl. Can you do the other one? Just that one. That's okay. I'll take it. Okay. So I hope that this has been helpful. I hope this has been, um, something that kind of helps you. Oh man. You got, I got dog drool over my hands that I just got all over my computer. Um, I hope that this has been helpful, and, uh, if it has, give it a thumbs up.
If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about building, um, you know, a strong freelance writing business where you can kind of move forward, subscribe. Uh, last kind of comments on this runway is open right now, so if you wanna join Runway, um, it's my live five day class with a bonus masterclass the following week.
So every single day we get on live and I teach you a class for about an hour. Then we do q and a. Um, this is $200 off the lifetime version. So the live version is me every single day for five days. The lifetime version is you get to keep everything right. It's all the, all the materials for the class, um, and you get to keep it as you know, lifetime of the class.
So, um, it's $200 off that, it's 49 bucks. Uh, the class is gonna be August 14th through the 18th. The class time is noon Pacific. Yeah, noon Pacific time, 2:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Eastern, 8:00 PM British Standard time. Um, and that's gonna be enrolling until Thursday. So it's open until August 10th. Um, and if you feel like that's a fit, go check it out.
maybe.com/runway. Um, this is something I, like I said before, it'll be a class that I'm not, I'm, I probably will teach it in March or April. I'm considering it maybe a January class, I'm not totally sure. So if you wanna join runway in 2023, this is your last chance for 2023. Um, if you don't wanna join the live version when live is over, you can get the lifetime version and you get to keep everything.
The live version is like, we're doing everything and you get to keep worksheets. You get to keep all the stuff, but you don't get to keep replays. So you can watch the replays as many times as you want. Um, but it's not the same thing as lifetime access. Cool. Okay. Good. I'm glad this was helpful. I hope everybody has a really good weekend.
Charlie hopes everybody has a good weekend, even though she looks a little grumpy. You're not grumpy. You're so cute. You have these funny little ears. Her ears are so expressive. Is that true? Are your ears expressive? What do you think? You're like more snacks. Good girl. All right, I'll see you guys. We're here every Friday at noon Central time.
If you ever have a topic or question, pop it in into mandy's dot com slash question and I will cover it. And if you haven't grabbed my free pricing guide, grab it. Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. Free pricing guide for freelance writers and content strategists. I update it regularly, like I'll probably do another update by the end of the year, but grab it. Okay, I'll see you guys next Friday. Hope everybody has a good weekend. Bye.
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