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I’ve been gone for a good long while, but the vacation is over.  After moving in back in September, I took some time to catch up on “me” projects and to spend some time visiting friends and relatives.  I even took on a very part time job at the same place I worked during high school.

While living off of my saving for six months was fun, I realized a couple of things that are propelling me back into freelancing.  1) Money doesn’t magically regenerate in my bank account.  2) I can’t stand not working.

#1 isn’t a big problem. Living in a small town, I really don’t have all that much overhead to worry about, so my bank account isn’t depleting itself very quickly.  Plus, I’m don’t have a big-spender lifestyle.

#2 is a bigger problem. As a younger lad, I had no problem watching movies and reading and playing games all day.  I still do all those things, but now I’m always spinning ideas out of them that I’m convinced will begin to strangle my brain in retaliation if I don’t put them to good use.

For instance, I watch a lot of movies.  A lot of movies.  I have the 6 DVD Netflix plan and still usually run out of things to watch after one day.  (Though now that Netflix has streaming video and I have a Roku, that is a thing of the past.)

I now have the complete inability to just watch movies anymore.  I start thinking about what I can do with all the knowledge that I’m gaining from the movie’s dialog, structure, lighting, the DVD special features and commentaries.  I think about my reviews on Netflix.  Then I get the idea–why not start a website about movie reviews.

In thinking more about the website, I narrow it to reviewing only movies that I watch on Netflix.  While I watch more movies, I start thinking about possible structure of the site, themes to use, widgets that will help viewers to navigate the site.

Eventually it all came to a head.  I reached a point where I couldn’t resist putting it together anymore.  Thus the site was born.  It’s not online yet–I’m still writing reviews for the bank, but it’ll be up by the end of the month.

I’m also writing an ebook, the first one I’ve ever written for myself.  That seems a strange kind of thing for a professional ebook write to have never written an ebook he hasn’t been paid to write, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.

In writing this ebook, I’ve found something that I’ve been lacking for a while: passion.  That’s why I stopped writing ebooks, I just didn’t have the interest in it anymore.

For the first couple years of writing ebooks, each one was interesting and challenging.  How best to present the information?  What to include and what to leave out?  The perfect images, the perfect design, the perfect layout.  After a while, I just started writing on autopilot, slogging through the words, thinking “Great, yet another ebook on real estate marketing.”

So I quit.  I honestly didn’t think that I would ever go back to it.  Didn’t think that I would ever be able to look at another ebook project without screaming.  But only six months later, I’m taking on clients again.

Maintining communication with my long-term clients and politely declining new projects leaves my reputation intact, but six months away has definitely hurt my business.  That’s okay though, because not taking time off to recharge myself and find my passion for the work again would have destroyed my business and, more importantly, my reputation.

I’m back, baby, and better than ever.