Freelance Writing Questions: Starting Out In Freelance Writing

Why aren’t you writing yet? A lot of people dream of starting a freelance writing career, but never get around to doing it. One of the reasons is that they fall in love with the dream of writing, but find the reality hard to achieve. So what’s the first thing you should do if you want to be a writer? The answer is simple — it’s to write.

I don’t mean to sound like a know-it-all, but I can tell you from my own experience that the more I write, the better I get at writing. One of my former students, SB, a mature student of around 50 looking for a new career, said that telling him to write was the best advice I’d given him in two years of teaching him journalism.

There’s a lot you can learn from journalism courses about techniques and approaches, but that’s only a complement to your own writing skill — and the only way to develop that is to write.

Getting Started

So, how do you get started? First of all, don’t worry when you start about whether your writing is any good or not. The important thing is to have an idea and follow through by getting something down on paper. You may throw it away, but psychologically you will have taken a big step.

Find a publication that you want to write for and study it (I’ll talk more about that in another post). This will help you to identify important elements about the content and style. Then try to write something again.

Finding A Critical Friend

One thing many beginning writers need is a critical friend. That means someone who can critique your work in a constructive way, but who has your best interests at heart. When I started out, my editor was critical, though not my friend. Other people have given work the thumbs up because they are friends, but have not been critical. The trick is to find someone who will strike the balance between being encouraging and helping you to improve.

This was what I did for SB and for all my students. I was thrilled when he got his first paid writing commission, and within six months or so, he didn’t need my help as often. You can do that too. Your critical friend might be a member of your local writing group or a forum. Ideally, this person should have a bit more experience, so that you can ask specific questions about the writing process and particular skills. Don’t worry if you can’t find such a person, you can always ask me — and I’ll be happy to answer.

On The Path To Success

You can become a successful writer. My student, SB, who had not written or published a piece of journalism when I met him, was writing and publishing in several magazines in his chosen niche within a year, and also did some PR work in a government department. So while you’re waiting for the next instalment, start writing and you’ll have taken the first step in achieving freelance writing success.

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