You’ve found a creative path, Congratulations!
But hold up ✋, there’s more to bear.💭
Here are the hurdles of Being a Creative in my Country:
- Explaining the creative career path to your relatives.
- People underpricing your work.
- Creativity block.
- The fact that this country is noisy.
Now, the break down,
Explaining the creative career path to your relatives.
Oftentimes, you’ll be misunderstood. You should be prepared to explain in detail what it is that you do.
In @TomiAdesina book, dear future husband, Kimberly’s Father wanted her to be an economist while she craved the path of a writer.
No matter how many times she tried explaining to her parents, they still acted like her entire career is a hobby they wanted her to outgrow.
Most Nigerian parents only know and approve known basic career choices: Medicine, Law, Engineering, Accounting and others that are some how related to these. Every other thing amounts to being a disappointment to the family.😁😆
People underpricing your work.
The painful one. 🙅♂️🙊
People are ok with paying other professionals like doctors, people perfectly understand why they have to pay for food, people even save money to pay for clothes and slay.
But somehow when it comes to creatives people suddenly don’t understand why the charge is so high.🤷♀️
They will even wish you work for them for free.
As a writer for instance, you can receive a huge pile of work with a strict deadline for an inhumane fee.🤦♀️🤦♀️
Like writing is one easy thing to pull off.
Then you begin to wonder, why they didn’t think of doing the job themselves, if it was that easy.🤷♀️
Alas, the flimsy excuse they usually give is they don’t have the time to do it.
In my head, I’ll be like,
‘Excuse you! What do you take us for? Jobless beings with plenty of time to spare?’🤦♀️
Creativity block.
Here comes the most deadly one that faces you like horror movie. It stems hugely from lack of inspiration, total burnout or you simply need that rest you’ve been craving badly.
Asides all the outside forces conniving to make work difficult for you, village people will still find a way to manifest internally via creativity block. Let me bring it home😂😂😀
And, it hits harder when you have a lot of work to do on tight deadlines. Double wahala 🙃😄
The fact that this country is noisy.
This usually happens if you cherish creating in the early hours of the morning.
The funniest is the cock crowing in the background 😂😂. That’s for the morning hours.
Then during the day, If it’s not your neighbor’s generator, it’s their kids arguing over what mommy said or didn’t say. Or it’s a church, mosque or religious gathering somewhere, or a group of gangsters, noise from cars etc
The noise will drive you nuts atimes. The solution will be to get a private office if you can afford that.🤷♀️
If this sounds familiar to your terrain, help me state other points I missed.😉🤩
And this is where we draw the curtain for our creative month of September. Please share with us how this month has been🤩🤩
Don’t worry we’re packaging October to be beautiful. 🤩🤩
Our October writing series will be more on content writing and how to make our writing beautiful.
But before then, share your creative struggles with us in the comments.
Can’t wait to read 😄😅