Working with Inspiration

My little soft-soled shoe business is failing.  Not for lack of demand, though if I charged as much as I should for them the demand would probably go down quite a bit.  I haven't finished a pair of shoes in a while.  I got stuck, waiting for materials to arrive and tweaking the pattern for the adult shoe before filling orders for it, and then I got too busy with other things.  Now, I'm having a hard time figuring out how I ever made time to do the work to begin with, and the guilty, obligated feelings I have about getting back to work are not helpful.  Even though I have not taken money from anyone, I still feel like I owe people the shoes I have promised them.  I was making 2 pairs a week for a while, and I thought I could sustain that pace, but I cannot.  I don't want to give it up, but I will not take custom orders again, certainly not more than one at a time.  

Part of the problem is that my son's needs, or my understanding of them, or maybe just my ability to meet them, have changed.  I have realized that he really needs more time out of the house and around other kids, and now that we have a car, I've been taking him to parks more often.  I don't "waste" the time by playing with him or just relaxing - I either knit, or I read something practical, but that doesn't help get shoes made.  I feel guilty for taking my kid to the park when I'm behind on shoe orders, then I resent my customers for putting that pressure on me (even though they are doing nothing of the kind).

I can't deny that a big part of the problem is that my inspiration has shifted.  I am learning that I'm more productive if I honor my inspiration.  I might want to knit all the time for a couple of months, then for 10 months I want nothing to do with it.  Recently I've been canning, which I had done very little of this year, and I've been cooking.  Even though I'm being productive, everywhere I look there are things that should have been done a week ago, or a month ago.  I simply don't have the time or the energy to do it all, no matter how badly I want to.  So I do the unavoidable things (like laundry), and with what is left, I do the work that inspires me the most at the moment.  

If I had stuck to making shoes I was inspired to make, instead of taking custom orders, I would probably be happy cobbling away right now, trying my hand at all different kinds of shoes.  That was the point, after all, to learn; I didn't expect it to be a profitable venture at this point (and it is not).  Maybe it's irresponsible to honor one's inspiration, and certainly it's undisciplined, but it is a luxury I will give myself for as long as I can afford it.