Writing-Resource

I began working as a freelance writer in 2001, when being temporarily laid off from my short-lived teaching career forced me to find other work I could handle, at the same time as caring for my two small children. I chose to look into the prospect of becoming a full time writer.

I had always enjoyed writing, and had a couple of published articles under my belt, but these were for academic journals. They offered status and (eventually) better career prospects, but no actual cash. It was perfectly clear that a career as a freelance writer would not be found there.

So I joined a writer’s group and sought their help. Everyone there was making a living of sorts from writing, but it was not a glamorous life. They were writing letters and short stories to popular magazines and usually earning the princely sum of £25 a time.

Never mind. I had to start somewhere…

I bought every popular mag I could find and scoured the letters pages and the short stories and articles. Most of the content was dire. It ranged from ‘tips on descaling your kettle the easy way’ to ‘having fun as an over 60′, or from ‘interesting women’s health issues’ to ‘the latest celebrity hairdos’.

Did I really want to produce written content like this?

Did I have a lot of choice…?

So off I went. I wrote pages and pages of ‘letters to the editor’, ‘gripping short stories’, and everything I could think of to write on ‘women’s health’. I asked ’searching questions’ about ‘celebrity marriages’, ‘how to bring up a toddler’ and even threw in the odd political rant.

And within a few weeks I had made my first sale.

It was a truly inspiring piece; accepted by a Christian weekly (no ‘unsuitable words’ allowed). I told a ‘happy true story’ about an elderly couple who had overcome adversity. Totally fictitious of course. And the piece must have been well liked, because the editor sent me a cheque for £50.

I was a professional freelance writer… of sorts.

That cheque was my motivation. Ever more fictitious truths spilled onto my keyboard to be posted the same day, all with a covering letter telling the editor something about me. My persona ranged from my own (young mum) to elderly gran, from Christian to Athiest with Buddhist or Pagan thrown in for the ‘New Age’ magazines.

Each week in the mail new cheques would arrive. £10 for a ‘readers letter’; £25 to £100 for a story, or a voucher for the latest yoga or hypnosis cd from the new age mags. It wasn’t a great wage. In fact in my capacity as a ‘professional freelance writer’ I earned much less than I earned teaching, but at least the money went some way towards paying the bills.

Then the university offered me my old job back. The accountants had had a change of heart. And although the higher salary would be nice and I loved teaching, I was also rather sad.

I would no longer have time to communicate with the nice lady readers of the Christian weekly on their ‘writer’s thoughts’ page, or share a discussion about the latest soaps on the TV mags.

It was time to get serious again…

But that short burst of freelance writing stood me in good stead. I now live in a ‘foreign country’, where teaching my chosen subjects isn’t a viable prospect.

So now I’m back producing written content, for everything from slimming, health and travel, to adult content for sex sites. Freelance writing pays a little better nowadays and today I write mainly for the internet. But writing this post has jogged my memory about those UK mags and their readers.

I wonder if they would be interested in more ‘fictional true stories’?

Hmmm, who can I be this time…?

Many people have a dream of being a Freelance writer. Being your own boss has great appeal. You may imagine yourself getting up when you feel like it, sitting and typing your words of wisdom on your laptop, in the sun with a cool drink by your side. All this and no boss to crack the whip and make you write when he wants you to does sound very appealing.

But is this really what being a Freelance Writer is all about?

Just because you are a good writer does not mean you can deliver what your clients want. And if you cannot deliver, you will never make a go of writing as a profession.

And if you cannot deliver, you may be the best writer in the world, but you will never be a huge success.

Working and succeeding as a freelance writer takes time, resources, a strong belief in yourself, absolute committment, and the ability to write good copy on things you really could not care less about…

Let’s say, for a moment, that you have set up your freelance writing business correctly. You have developed a credible and trustworthy brand name, you have generated a ‘presence’ within the industry and on the internet, but you are still in the early stages of your writing business. At this point in time you will offer your writing skills to anyone who will pay you a reasonable rate.

How would you cope when commissioned to write about something you personally find intensely boring?

Would you be able to deliver?

If you are just starting out as a freelance writer, you may well answer: “Yes, of course I could.” You may think that as long as you produce a standard writing format (problem, empathy, example, build up, climax of problem, recommendation and example for solution) you can use this to write about anything.

A successful freelance writer is, indeed, able to do this and do it well. However, they would be lieing to you if they said that writing like this is never boring. It can be boring as hell!

And if you suppose you will be able to refuse to write about things which do not interest you and still be a freelance writing success, you will be wrong.

Only the writers at the very top of the freelance tree are able to pick and choose their projects and they have made the ‘top spots’ through years of hard slog and dedication… and years of writing copy which has not thrilled them one little bit.

But a new freelance writer will not have this advantage and will soon discover that much of their work involves writing about things which simply cannot garner their interest.

Writing, day after day, about things which you are not particularly interested in can be tedious at best and sometimes even exhausting. However, to prove him or herself to be a trustworthy, professional writer, anyone intent on making a living as a freelance writer has to cope with this and deliver that written content, on time and full of inspiring words.

Could you deliver under these circumstances?

Because, if you cannot produce good, written copy even when the going gets tough or down right boring, you will never be a successful freelance writer.