What Do You Do When You Get Discouraged?

This is just a rant, which is what I do when I am upset and it seems to help me get it all out of my system. However, I actually do want an answer to my question. I know it is something all freelance writers have to deal with at some time or another so there has to be some good ideas out there! I would just like a place where I can come to when I’m discouraged to get over it by reading other people’s ideas and hopefully I will get enough feedback from this rant that this will be the place!

I am a freelance writer partly because I dislike being controlled and partly because I have always wanted to be a writer. Instead of escaping the control factor, however, it seems I have just run smack dab into again. Of course, it makes sense, after all, that the ones doing the paying control even freelancers. Duh!

Which I actually believe I don’t have a problem with because I think I always give 110% to an employer and am always willing to change my copy to however they want (there’s no accounting for someone’s taste so I don’t even try to win that battle) because after all they are paying for the job. However, I do not want to compromise any more than I have already on the price because I am not willing to work for third world prices because I am not living in a third world and believe my work should be worth a decent day’s wages (read spoiled American writer, I know).

So, it seems when I win that battle, I lose the war because in order to stay in control the employer must somehow win. (I’ve even been an employer so I know it’s true!) For example, on a recent job I won the battle of getting paid $15 per hour to write a blog. The person said he liked my writing but was not happy with the price I bid per hour but I didn’t budge. So he reluctantly gave me a “trial”. I purposely did not charge the guy an entire hour for writing the blog in order to appease him but I wrote it in first person and gave it what I deemed to be engaging copy with personality. He didn’t like the first person slant so I offered to rewrite it at no charge. He said to let him think about it since he thought it might help him engage his audience, which was what I was trying to do.

So, after a week or two, he ends the contract and I’m thinking that’s probably for the best since he really didn’t like the wage he was paying me (the rest of his contracts were for $2 an hour!) Then the sneaky so and so waits until the last possible moment to give feedback and gives me a 4 out of 5 for skills, quality and communication. He gives me a three for deadline, which I totally disagree with since I turned the piece in right away---and then a five for cooperation saying, “I was a good writer and very willing to listen to suggestions for improvement.” So what’s my beef? He ruined my perfect 5.0 score! Lol! And the criticism was unfounded—particularly the 3.0 score for deadlines!

Yeah, I know, these things are going to happen and if something like this is going to throw me for a loop then I have no business being in this business. But of course, that’s not the only incident like this; it’s just the latest one on top of other disappointments.

I have survived the numerous players who asked me and everyone else who applied for the job to write a “trial” piece and then not ever hire anyone one. I finally wised up to that one, lol!

I have escaped doing jobs for less than minimum wage just to get experience and have it twisted around that unless I can churn ‘em out at 4 or 5 articles an hour that makes me a bad writer.

I have survived many a different person who has led me on thinking I have finally found the employer who will pay me a decent wage, appreciate what I am doing, and give me steady work. I must say those are the toughest for me since even though I know better, I always seem to fall for this one because ultimately I still think that is going to happen—not!

I have gotten good feedback from all but this one client and I’ve enjoyed that. It’s nice to be appreciated, one of the reasons I am working as a freelancer instead of still in the corporate world where black can be called white and white can be called black and there’s not a **** thing you can do about it. I hoped I was escaping that world but it’s still here in the world to where I've run! (Why am I so surprised?)

I know the answer is either to have your own source of income through affiliate marketing, a website of your own or enough well written, SEO Optimized articles to get monthly residual income but I haven’t got that either, lol! Meanwhile, I have to eat!

So I’m discouraged. Which leads me back to my original question. What do you do when you get discouraged (besides write a rant like the one I’m doing