Dec
13
Get to Work, Woman!
And that is what I have been telling myself for weeks now. Every day for weeks I have been waking up in the morning or afternoon or middle of the night, whichever time my wonky sleeping schedule of that particular moment warranted, enjoyed some coffee and sat at my computer with WordPress and Photoshop open and for weeks I have gotten nothing done. I never realized a day could go by so fast while sitting in front of the computer racking my brain for inspiration, but here I am, way past the point of ‘don’t force creativity to come spilling out onto the computer, just wait it out and it will strike when you least expect it.’ It did not strike and I am well past the waiting period to just let it come oozing out of me; I need it now, dammit!
I was hired to design and develop a website for a woman I have admired for years, Angela Shelton. She gave me the motivation to begin my healing process and it is because of her that I am a relatively sane and functional woman. I have been fortunate beyond words due to the fact that I speak to the woman whom I believe played an integral role in saving my life on a relatively regular basis; and while I am far more fortunate than many others out there who would love to speak with their mentors, to be hired by them is quite another feeling.
After we first began talking online and I told her what I did for a living, she hired me to design and develop a website for her online cooking show, Stirring Up Trouble, which I did, and because she liked the work I did so much, she then hired me to revamp her current online web presence, AngelaShelton.com. This, of course, has been an opportunity of monumental proportions for me. The design planned for the website is nothing short of my limitations, but because I have gained so much in my life from this person, every time I sit down to work on the design of this website, I freeze. This experience has sent me through emotional hurdles; waves of inferiority and teeny tiny little waves of determination. I have been working on websites for over eight years; I have always had a website of some sort to work on and a friend of mine told me, when I told him about this gig, that I have been training for years for a gig that means this much to me and he was right.
Working for someone who you admire is hard. It challenges you to make sure that you bring everything inside of you, especially creatively, outside and make sure that you are representing yourself as a designer to the best of your ability. It gives you the chance to give back to someone who has helped you more than you could possibly put into words and while it isn’t an easy task, I’m willing to bet it will be amazingly rewarding. That is, once I force the creativity out of me and onto the screen in front of me and until then, I’ll just have to keep working on it because that’s all you can do.
I think this is very exciting. I am happy for you and sure you will do your best work! Good Luck!