Day 13 of 30-Day Blogging Challenge: 13 things I hate about being creative

Day 13 of 30-Day Blogging Challenge: 13 things I hate about being creative

Day 13 of the 30 work day blogging challenge, here goes nothing.
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Thirteen is a magical number, it brings bad luck or it brings nostalgia for movies like 13 Things I Hate About You (one of my favorites because, romance—duh).

I’m a 95% positive person and hate is a strong word for me so please don’t take it literally when I say that I hate being creative. Just having an influx of creativity can have some drawbacks though (in a humorous way). In every day work life, it could lead me to spending way too long on a graphic design project and not able to settle because it’s not creative enough or it’s not unique enough, when really, what I’ve created usually does the job. Usually when this happens, I end up charging for less time because I know in reality I should not have been spending as long as I did on it. A part of me believes this stems from my people-pleasing personality—making sure my clients are 100% happy and continue to need me. Another part of me is a digital art perfectionist and another tiny part of me just wants it to be the best work I’ve done yet. That’s the competitive nature in me.

For example, there was this Music with Friends ad I had to design a few weeks ago for a Houston magazine called City Books and I was given about 10 hours notice (no one’s fault, just a calendar mishap) and I had to design something to advertise an upcoming Mavericks and all the personality they embody. I had to make it FUN to join Music with Friends and to watch legendary artists at an incredible venue in Houston, Texas. I was stumped after several hours of working on it in a coffee shop. I couldn’t make it POP, or at least I didn’t think I could. Then this past week, I had to make another ad for different upcoming show with Gladys Knight and I had two weeks notice so of course the pressure was off, but still— I ended up liking this one SO much better and of course I spent way too long on this one as well.  My creative perfectionist side was at a full fledge 100% nerd status.

​Here’s a comparison of the two ads:

On the same token, being creative with food photography can be tricky too. When I try to do food photography, I end up thinking things like “Now why on earth did the chef put a horrible piece of lettuce under this gorgeous steak?” Sure, that’s attention to detail, but when you’re on a time constraint and on a social media agenda, you can’t worry about that nonsense.

Being creative can even affect the way I speak to people via e-mail. I kid you not, I try to find the most creative way to say the most simple things ie. “I would be honored to be your wedding photographer,” and I catch myself saying things like “Darling, I would be over the moon to capture photos that would make you and Doug cry when it’s all over. These photos are going to be the photos you’ll treasure forever.” Then I hit the backspace before I even re-read what I just said because who needs that kinda cheese?

In the private life, being a creative makes me want to do things like buy the coolest lamp in the world. Overhead lighting is the death of me, so everywhere I go, I somehow manage to find the neatest lamp in the place. One time, I even asked a restaurant if they’d sell a lamp to me when it was clearly not for sale.  It’s weird I know, but lamps can make a place so welcoming. My poor husband has been listening to me talk about lamps for a godforsaken amount of time (he’ll vouch for this) and keeps telling me to wait to buy furniture until we have our own home. I can never bring myself to buy them anyway because are they really worth two, three hundred dollars? What makes them that valuable? The lampshade must have come from Jesus himself, my lawd. Let it shine in that store. I ain’t going to get it when I can buy three weeks worth of groceries for that amount of money. But then I come home and look at my ugly target lamps made from China. *sigh*

Having creativity is definitely something I appreciate every day though— it allows me to think outside the box. For example, Jess and I have been looking at potential houses to buy and I immediately visualize how much better it could be with that wall knocked out or that carport turned into a master bedroom, or that bathroom with new tile. But of course, the creative side meets the rational side when I realize that we don’t have a million dollars or a show on HGTV for a home renovation.

13 things I hate about being creative:

1. Makes you spend too long on projects.
2. You notice little things like a bitty piece of lettuce in budget food photography projects.
3. Lamps are everywhere you go and you want to buy all of them to make your house pretty.
4. You can visualize a ranch house into a $500,000 floor plan you can't afford.
5. You spend 8 days trying to name a cat a cool, memorable name and you end up at Jazzy?
6. You feel like you have to have photographs all over your house because you are after all... a photographer. 
7. You spend a grand for your master bedroom fabric because you think that's what creative adulting means. 
8. You wish that all your Instagram photos and postings were consistent but you really just don't have time for that.  
9. You think that every inspirational quote is generic when it might change most people's lives.
10. You do out-0f-box things and people don't give you credit. Once I tried to convince a company that had a penguin logo to hire me by hiring a bakery to make sixty dollars worth of custom penguin cookies for them and a week after I delivered cookies to them,  I see that they tried to claim it was their idea when they tried to deliver cookies to their clients as customer appreciation token. See photo below for proof.
11. You are constantly coming up with marketing plans for your business but never have time because you have to put your customers first (as you should). 
12. Creativity involves all the software these days so you have to subscribe to use anything nowadays. For example, creative cloud, I ended convincing myself I needed the entire adobe platform versus just a couple of softwares.... why? 
13. You never know when to stop. You'll find yourself blogging at 11 o'clock at night so you can maintain a 30-day blogging challenge because you feel like this is how you stand out. Irony right?

Do y’all relate to this nonsense at all? Do you think I’m babbling? Probably. But hey, I’m trying to be creative just writing that sentence so I better stop before I re-read this hellish blog I just wrote on the fly.

Changing the subject: I often get asked about cameras from friends because apparently I look knowledgeable in that area but I’m about as educated as you are until I force myself to just peruse the online market. For Day 14 of the 30-day blogging challenge, I’ll be talking about my equipment, how I shopped for it and what I recommend camera enthusiasts to look out for in the research and shopping process. No, I’m not going to have a bunch of lingo in this blog post—it’ll be in English.

Aforementioned penguin cookies.