If you’re considering a freelance career, be prepared for long hours, hard work and few short term rewards.   There is considerable competition and the work, when it comes, can be demanding, with approaching deadlines, unreasonable clients and little recognition for your hard work.  You won’t have a steady paycheck and at times you’ll wonder if eating macaroni and cheese five nights a week will make your skin orange.    That’s the bad news. 

Here’s the good news.

1. You get paid to write.  Most writers would write for free so every pay day is just frosting on the cupcake.   When you’re just starting out your pay scale will be lower until you build a portfolio of published work.  How much is your time worth? Before you submit a bid, get an idea of the rate charged by your competitors, the size of the project and factor in expected expenses and overhead.

2.  You can work at your own pace.    You may need to juggle family or work commitments to make room for writing each day. Start slow, with just a few simple changes, such as scheduled time each day to write.  All of my writing occurs in 30 minute bursts of creativity.  After 30 minutes I move onto another project and return to each piece after a few hours have passed.  I’ve also learned that I can write for about 5 hours a day, after which I’m physically and emotionally drained.  I spend the rest of my work day planning projects, setting goals, responding to email or submitting queries.

3. You can choose what type of work you do.  Based on your interests and expertise, you can pick a field to work in or target a specific medium such as; magazines, ezines, websites or technical documents.  Find the niche that’s right for you.  Brainstorm a list of the things you like to write about and once you’ve got several items on your list, narrow it to the top two.  My list began as:

Movies

Books

Writing

Self Help

Humor

Gossip

Entertainment

Motivation

Parenting

I narrowed my list to Entertainment and Writing.  I started two blogs related to these topics and put the rest aside, for now. 

4. You can work from home or the road.  I have a designated work area and when I’m working the door is closed and “Do Not Disturb” sign is hung from the door knob.   My writing is my job and my family respects the time I need to do my job. 

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