I’ve decided to diverge from my - let’s face it - undefined career path and pursue freelance writing. A few things have brought me to this point, none of which involve my coming into a large inheritance that will make this choice relatively risk-free.
You know that feeling where time seems to disappear and whoops, it’s suddenly 3am and you’ve spent your entire night completely absorbed by an art project, computer program, or shamefully addictive TV series?
Math used to do this for me, but that hasn’t happened since high school calculus.
Still, I labored on with math because I believed that, if I found my niche, I’d find my love. But true love never came. Instead, math and I awkwardly remained “just friends”, and if I was feeling particularly vulnerable, we were mortal enemies (like when I set out to prove a theorem that I knew should take two pages but I could barely muster the first few lines).
I’ll always have a penchant for science and numbers, but if push my attempt to BE a scientist any further, I fear there will be no saving whatever friendship is left between math and I.
Then there’s the question that’s been scaring the shit out of me: if I don’t do math, what the hell else will I do?
Recently, the answer has taken the shape of books, bicycle grease, mechanical pencils, mind maps and moleskins. What do I love? I love cycling, walking across mountains, camping, cooking dal, taking pictures of food, making lists, making THINGS - paintings, web pages, mix CDs. Most of all, I love to write about this stuff. And when I think about my “career”, the part I enjoy most is writing papers and making pretty graphs.
As I see it, freelance writing is the perfect job. I’d get paid to learn new things, talk to people, and write all about it. And if it all worked out, I’d even get paid to eat and travel. Best of all, it would give me an independent income and the freedom to work anywhere I want, be it at home or on the road, traveling across the country in my adventure wagon.
Freelance writing would give me the freedom to live wherever I want, whenever I want. This is my dream.
Um, ok, how?
Patience and hard work.
I fully expect this to take many years. I’m not quitting my job (yet), but I am looking to transition into something that will give me more freedom and creative energy to freelance as much as possible.
In the meantime, I’m taking a few actions to get me started:
- Read books about writing
I’ve just read The Freelance Writer’s Handbook by Andrew Crofts (more on this later) and have Tim to thank for my ever expanding reference book collection.
- Take a course on freelancing
I not only need to practice writing, I also need to meet other writers and get feedback from someone who knows what they’re talking about. Last Friday I had my first Freelance Writing class at City University (more on this later, too).
- Write as much as humanly possible
In order to be a freelance writer, I need to practice writing like one. I’ll start by writing about freelance writing, my progress, and all the little things I learn along the way. I want to spend more time writing high(er) quality features and less time on random banter.
My short term goal is to have an article to sell by the end of my course (March 28). The next step will be to sell it.
Related posts:
0 Responses to “Getting started as a freelance writer”