Frustration and the thought of giving up.

Yes, it's currently half midnight here for me and I'm writing a post. I never do this.

I nearly gave up tonight. I nearly decided to just give up the art business.
I've become so stressed over the whole ordeal I'd lost the motivation and passion I originally started out with. I've felt sick and tired, lost my muse and just become this big ball of tetchy moo for the past month because it's all just gotten so big that I can't keep up or I hit walls.

Today was probably the worst day. I kept trying to be super positive and within seconds I hit a wall... so I'd carry on skirting around the wall, finding a different option and bang! Another wall. This happened persistently from midday onwards. I had this false, creepy grin on my face trying to hold on to the positives as they were being sucked away one by one.
Tonight... I fell in to despair. I thought I'd lost everything, I was stuck and my positive attitude was buried under a big fat eeyore cloud... which I was wallowing under. Hey, I guess everyone needs a moment to wallow :P
It was only then that I stopped to think what was causing this despair. I'm an extremely stubborn, determined, positive person. I rarely let negatives get me down and here I was, wallowing.

And I spent ages thinking over what was upsetting me, then asking myself why? and on and on we went and then it came to the conclusion.
I've been so wrapped up in trying to turn this in to something bigger, trying to be a better small business that I'd completely stopped doing artwork!
Any artwork I was managing was prints of work I've already made!

I call myself a freelance illustrator/artist and yet here I am not doing any artwork at all, instead I've become a business planner! Don't get me wrong I've done well but that's not what I want to do!
I want to create as well as the more boring stuff that goes along with it and I haven't been doing that.
Since when did being an artist not involve artwork!?
I know that it's common knowledge that an artist nowadays does more paperwork than artwork but I've messed up that balance. Right now I'm just doing the paperwork and it's draining my soul!
My muse must be mummified by now with the lack of creating I've been going through!

The worst thing here is that I'm meant to be making lots of designs for a future project... I should've started by now. Well, I should be at least halfway through by now! Instead I haven't even started the thing!

I guess it's a lesson to be learned. There needs to be a good balance between business and creativity. I had that balance but for some reason I lost it... I got so wrapped up in designs and products that I kinda forgot to actually make more designs!

So, the business side of things is on hold for the rest of this week so that I can catch up on all of the planned work I have!

I may mope and threaten to give up... usually because a small part of me is desperate for a break but I'm too ridiculously stubborn to give up.
I'm as stubborn as a hamster trying to fit broccoli in to it's pouch!