Help! The Ride Through Freelance Hell is Making Me Nauseous

Note: If you look at this photograph very, very closely, you can see something melting in the red-hot center of the fire. That something is my sanity.

Hi there. I'm at an amusement park, trapped on a bumpy rollercoaster ride called Sway's Freelance Career.

In January, I challenged myself to get my freelance writing career off the ground by the end of the year. Well, now it's the middle of July, so maybe this is a good time for a checkup. [Er, it was the middle of July when I started this post, promise.]

Verdict: I've succeeded.

That is, if by "succeeded" we mean "contracted, completed and earned money from one or more freelance writing assignments." In which case, the answer is, "Yes! Yes! I've done that! I made that happen!"

But if by "succeeded" we mean "earned some sort of reliable income from said assignments," then the answer is no, not quite.

Right now, payments for freelance assignment make up a tiny, tiny fraction of my full-time income. And one day, I'd like that equation to shift in the opposite direction.

But do you want to know one very important thing I've learned about trying to make your income -- or at least part of your income -- via freelance writing?

It will steal your soul all your free time.

Because if you want to write for profit, you have to be writing all the time.

Every day I wake up, check my e-mail, check in on my assignments and follow-up as necessary, Then I go to my full-time job, where I work and write in between working. And then I go home, and I check in on my assignments and write and follow-up as necessary again. Write, eat, sleep, repeat.

It's pretty exhausting to always be stressin' about deadlines, and that is starting to take its toll on me -- on my energy, on my patience, on my attitude in general ...

But, then again, it's not like I didn't see this coming. And, it is what I've always wanted to do. And it is what I believe I'm good at. And we all want to do something we're good at, right?

So until I get to the point where every one of my articles nets me a healthy wad of cash, I have to find the discipline and motivation to keeping chugging along for the smaller payments.

Can I do it?

The Uniform Project

The Uniform Project kind of fascinates me.

Sheena Matheiken began the project in May 2009 to raise money for the Akansha Foundation, a non-profit that supports education in the slums of Mumbai. As the central part of the project, she has pledged to wear the same dress every day for 365.

Well, it's sort of the same dress.

Actually, to be fair, she has seven identical dresses. Seven black, short-sleeved, hang-just-above-the-knee, button-down tunic dresses, one for each day of the week.

But just because Matheiken is wearing the same thing every day doesn't mean her outfits all look the same. See for yourself.

She says the project was inspired by the uniforms she wore each day to school while growing up in Mumbai. She remembers how she and the other students were forced to be creative with accessories, etc., in order to project their individual personalities beyond their uniforms.

I find this concept interesting because it proves that you don't have to wear something radically different each day to let your tastes and uniqueness shine through. In fact, I think this project might prove that you can actually get a better idea of what another individual's personality is like by observing how he or she circumvents restrictions to deliver a distinct, personal brand of flair.

Ah, darn. I knew I couldn't do a post like this without using the word "flair" ...

Can't a Girlfriend Get a Sparkler?

Happy Independence Day to America and Americans everywhere! I hope you get to see some fireworks today, if you like that sort of thing.

I do, but somehow I managed to move myself into the middle of the only no-fireworks zone in all of Western America. (See below.) In this state, apparently "novelty items" do not include sparklers, but do include those annoying little popping things kids throw on the ground to scare the bejeebuz out of adults who weren't looking.

So for the sake of fellow Arizonans -- and those living in Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island -- this will just have to do: