Life as a wannabe freelance writer
With the impending arrival of spring, okay, it’s not really impending, but with our transition into the month of March which is closer to the arrival of spring, I decided it was time to do some career improvement. I’ve been thinking of officially taking some editing courses over the last several months, as that’s something that I’ve been interested in for a while. I recently had my performance review at work as well, and my boss reminded me that our department has a training budget we can use. My courses aren’t that expensive, around $270 each, plus textbooks, so I figured I would be able to get my company to pay for it. And sure enough, my boss said “no problem”. Sweet!
First course up is a grammar course for editors and writers. I took a grammar course about 10 years ago as part of my technical writing certificate, so I was hoping to get an extension, however that was denied. No big deal as I’m a bit of a grammar nut anyways, so I figured it would be kind of fun. Although I am anxious to get started into the editing classes themselves, I’ve got to get this grammar course out of the way first.
So for 14 consecutive Tuesdays, I will be out and about learning more about clauses, verb tenses and parts of speech. Excellent.
In: Job Hunting| Life
17 Jan 2010So it’s been a few weeks since I posted about how I was going to post twice a week here, and as you can see, that has gone really well. <grin> Since I know it takes a long time for a behaviour to become a habit (you have to repeat it 21 times before you stop thinking about it — I read this somewhere once, I think it was even an official thing like a medical study or something), I was hoping the posting twice a week would do it since it was a small thing.
Fat chance.
BUT, I have been sticking to my two other resolutions, which were to start some light exercising twice a week (trying to work myself up to some bigger things) and also checking out the freelancing job boards once a week. I’m pleased with that, as I want to be sure to keep my fingers on the freelancing pulse as it were, and also get off my duff to make sure I don’t turn into a complete couch potato.
So while I haven’t actually spent much time writing per se, I’ve at least started to ease back into the writing pool by checking the job boards. Next up I’m hoping to start applying to a few jobs, but I figure I should increase my posting frequency here to make sure my writing’s up to snuff. I’ve been doing a lot more actual writing at the day job at Acme Co., which is nice, and also getting my hands dirty with some fun things like SharePoint 2007, which have helped with my day job satisfaction. That’s always good. But my ultimate goal is to work freelance from home so my daily commute is only 5 minutes (and that’s with a pit stop in the kitchen for a coffee). Small steps, one at a time.
In: Freelancing| Job Hunting
6 Jan 2010Most of the time when people ask me why I haven’t started doing any “serious” freelance writing, I tell them it’s because I don’t have the energy to do it after coming home from the full time job. But that’s not really true. It’s partially true, but not the real reason. The real reason is the cliched one: I’m just too scared to apply to ads.
Yep, it’s true. I am a wimp.
There, now that it’s out in the open, let’s see about getting me over this fear. The other day Yolander wrote about applying for freelance writing jobs as part of a series she’s doing on the subject at All Freelance Writing. And I must say I was very happy to read this post because she debunks one of the biggest “myths” about freelance writing: that you have to apply to 10-15 gigs per day or week in order to find a job. This is another thing that’s got me a bit scared, particularly because I am working full time right now, so I just do see how I can possibly find the time and the energy to apply to 15 jobs a day. There’s just no possible way for me to do that. Weekly, maybe, but daily? Forget it.
But Yo talks about how she went for the quality queries rather than the quantity queries. She targeted the ones most appropriate for her and went for it. This is something that I need to do. I need to get into the habit of looking for the ads in the same places, but then only apply for ones that fit some criteria for me.
So that’s what I’m going to do. Once I get into the habit of looking at the ads and job boards, I’ll be looking at figuring out what my “ideal job” criteria are and then applying to the ones that meet them. That might mean I only apply to 5 jobs in a month, but as long as they’re the right 5 jobs, that’s fine by me.
In: Freelancing| Life| Writing
3 Jan 2010Yes, it’s a new year, and time to get things started off right. I’ve talked and tweeted about getting off my duff and getting back to my writing, so I’ve decided that I should start it off now. I’m taking advantage of the new year and am going to start getting back into the swing of things. Normally I don’t make resolutions as I find them a tad hard to stick to, but I figure I’ll start off small so that I’ll actually manage to do it. So, I have resolved to
That’s it for now, just post here twice a week. As most writing “coaches” will tell you, it’s important to get back into the habit of writing, so that’s what I’m going to do. Create the habit and get back to it. Hopefully each month I’ll be able to add something else to this, like post three times a week, read the freelance writing job boards once a week, then twice a week, and so on. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to snowball this whole thing and get moving on it! The full time job has been pretty good lately, so I haven’t been as keen on getting the freelancing work started, but after being off for the last week and a half for the holidays, I was reminded of how much I enjoy being at home and doing things at my own pace.
So here I am, making the commitment to you and the universe, and myself (most importantly), that I will write.
That is all. (for now)
In: TW
12 Nov 2009In my efforts to kick-start this freelance writing career of mine, I logged into my Helium. com account to see if there were any new articles I could contribute there. Living in Canada limits my options on some of the places I can earn money (Associated Content and eHow are off-limits to me, payment-wise), so I often contribute to Helium. I haven’t written there in a while, so I wanted to refresh my memory.
I went to check out my current article list there to see how I was doing, and I’m surprised to see that I’m almost at the payout amount in earnings! (that’s $25, if you don’t know) AND, my top earners have me in the as either the #1 or #2 article for the category, which is amazing. So without further ado, I give you my top 5 list.
Now I’ve got only 14 articles up there, so it’s taken me a while to amass my mountain of $18.18, however I know there are writers on there that are earning a lot because they’ve got hundreds of articles on Helium.com. Of course they’re also well-written and well-promoted, which helps. I’ve only done some small promotion of my articles, however I find it interesting to see what my top 5 articles are with that little bit of work. (just think where I’d be if I’d been promoting them all the time!)
Have any of you used Helium.com? Are you enjoying your experience? And how about your earnings?
I'm a freelance technical writer who's trying to make the transition from working for somebody else to working for me.