Felicia Pride: Re-Establishing Her Relationship with Writing by Marcie Hill

Felicia Pride, a purpose-filled content creator, fell into a creative rut and did what she calls a fateful error: “I stopped writing and got a job.” While this is not totally a bad thing, because all content creators experience periods of creative block, Felicia committed a cardinal creative sin: she stopped writing completely for seven years.

During this period, Felicia started her own consultancy and was in service to other creators but she was not creating herself. Although she enjoyed the work she was doing, she recalls “feeling creatively empty….being very burnt out… doing stuff that really wasn’t what my heart was burning to do.” She admits, she should have gotten a job and kept writing.

To fulfill her desire to write for both film and TV, Felicia took a leap of faith and moved to Los Angeles “to write and create content again, to become a writer again.” But she first had to get a job. She worked as a film distribution exec by day while writing screenplays at night. But she wasn’t really writing.

Felicia had several small wins along the way, which confirmed she was on the right track. But reality kicked in when she was laid off from her job in October 2017. “That was a blessing in disguise. God said, ‘You said you came out here to write and I’m going to make you really, really have to make that decision.’” She could no longer run and hide from what she had been called to do.

That was the turning point that made Felicia: 1) re-prioritize writing, which required her to re-establish her relationship with the work, and 2) create a more healthy relationship with the work. She then prioritized it so it became the most important thing.

So, how did Felicia re-establish her relationship with writing?

“I look at it two-fold. One is the spiritual/self-worth part of things. For me, there is a strong connection between self-worth and craft.” She had to dig deep into her fears, and she asked herself, “Why did I stop writing in the first place?” and “What am I scared of?” She realized “Imposter Syndrome” was another culprit of her fears.

She worked through the fears and really dug into them through journaling, meditating, hiking, and practicing yoga. Pride says, “All things that allowed me to get inside my head.”

On a practical side, she developed a strict discipline of writing every morning; joined and started writers groups; and hired a career coach to help her understand the business as it applied to what she was trying to do, as well as identify the type of work she needed to produce for her portfolio so she could have samples ready for opportunities that arose.

“It was really working through the fears and thoughts I had around writing, and rearranging them, rewiring them, so that I could push back the fear and sit down in front of the computer and make it happen.”

If you are a creative individual who has fallen into a creative rut and need to reconnect with your writing, sign up for Felicia’s The Creative Comeback course or visit The Create Daily (@createdaily), her resource for underrepresented creators.

Learn how Felicia stepped into her creative power in the April 2020 Edition of Sistah’s Place magazine.