Sometimes *they* catch *you*.

Greetings.

As a part-time freelancer and maker of things ... I spend a good proportion of my time seeking out opportunities, trying to gain momentum ...

... hoping to promote myself, my words and my wares to you, to customers, to editors ... in short, to any and all other living creatures!

I plan out expressions of interest; proposals; submissions to magazines. I draft out ideas for future workshops; I keep my eyes peeled for guest blogging slots; I'm alert to the calls for work, submissions etc from people/magazines and journalists on Twitter.

I scribble down ideas for new product ranges I'd make for my etsy shop if only I had the time ...

Add to all of this the pressure I put on myself to achieve 'something' ...

... and it's little wonder that all this chasing tires me out from time to time.

But I ought not to forget that there are times while I'm running in one direction and chasing something ahead of me ... someone unexpected catches up, runs alongside me and asks me to do something for them.

And I can stop running. And catch my breath. Like when I was commissioned to personalise a special journal:

The request came from out of the blue. From someone who I've never met, but for who I'd made a journal for a while ago. When it was the only thing I could offer them during a difficult time.

This new journal is to record the good times.

And I couldn't have been happier to make it [even though I cried when they asked!].

Remembering this has helped me get over myself and a [relatively fleeting] pity-party I had with myself yesterday regarding all the chasing I do ... when sometimes I'd just like to be hunted down.

Because, as this journal proves, sometimes I am hunted down. Sometimes I get asked to do a job such as a journal which will never appear in a book or magazine, but which is ultimately so very important to the person who commissioned it.

And therefore to me.

How about you remind me of that next time I drift off into self-doubt? I think I'll go and write it down and pin it to my brain so that I can remember to rest awhile, safe in the knowledge that someone, somewhere is recording the details of a real, colourful, spirited life ... in a book I made:

Thanks for stopping by to take a breather with me today.

Jx