Today Deb blogged about the excuses we all come up with as freelance writers. Things like “I don’t have enough experience”, and “there are no jobs out there”. The list got me thinking of my own personal reasons for not starting freelance work, so I’d like to add a few more from my personal files.

1. My day job keeps me too busy. This is my own personal demon that’s kept me from striking out as a freelancer. It’s the 100-pound gorilla on my back, the elephant in the room (pick your metaphor). So when the chance to go freelance finally presented itself last month, I took it. Jumped into the deep end with both feet and I’ve been loving every minute of it. Even though I’ve made a grand total of $5 so far, I haven’t had this much fun in years!
2. I’m not inspired to write. This is another tough one to battle, as we’ve all run into it. Whether it’s because you’re too tired from your day job, you’re sick, your kids or family take up too much of your time, sometimes inspiration is nowhere to be found. But this is when you’ve got to persevere and just do it. I’ve been trying to stick to a writing schedule, making sure I write something everyday.
3. I don’t have a niche topic to write about. This is an easy one to fix, even though you might think you are truly stuck for topics. Sit down with a blank pad of paper and a pen (or a blank text file on your computer, whichever works for you.) Think of three things you like to do. You could write “cook”, “eat”, and “play video games”. Good, now think of 5 more. Pull out your thesaurus and start looking up some of these words and see what other topics you can develop. Pretty soon your page will be full of ideas and topics for niches you can write about. Do a bit of research on the Web and see what sites or publications are out there for those topics. There you have it, you’ve discovered your niche topic, the things you like to write about. Chances are these are topics you’re passionate about, and have some knowledge about, so you can just start writing. So go ahead, start writing.
4. Web content writing is different than corporate writing, so I won’t be able to find work as a web writer. Another one that’s specific to me. I’ve worked as a technical writer for over 8 years in a corporate environment, so writing web content is definitely something I’ve not done “professionally”. BUT, I do consider myself a writer first, and a computer geek second, so between those two things I know I can figure it out. I do some research on web content writing, and I read blogs and articles…A LOT of blogs and articles. And I started writing posts on my own blogs (like this one), practicing the craft. While I know I’m not perfect, I think I’m getting the handle of it, and I know that as a good writer, I trust myself to be able to write whatever web content is needed, for either myself or a potential client. Plus I can use these posts as “clips” for job applications.