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?