Freelance Writing Questions: Why Go Freelance?

Last week I invited you to ask your questions about freelancing. I got a great response, with several questions to answer. Rachel asked why I decided to go freelance.

For me, the decision was relatively easy. I didn’t realise how essential writing was to my well being till I stopped doing it every day. I was writing mostly academic stuff and I wanted to get back to regular writing.

On the face of it, it was a crazy decision. I had a good job as a lecturer, with a decent salary and flexible hours. Why give that security up for the uncertainty of freelancing?

My Reasons For Freelancing

I had two main reasons. First, lecturing was demanding, and it meant that I didn’t spend as much time with my baby daughter as I wanted to. Freelancing was one way to be able to set my own hours, more or less. I was able to freelance half the week while my daughter was in daycare, and do mother and baby groups for the rest of the week.

Second, I wasn’t happy not writing. When I went freelance, I knew I had made the right decision, because I was doing what I loved. I enjoyed getting up every day, even if I didn’t have that many writing commissions at the start.

Other Reasons For Freelancing

So those were my reasons. Many freelancers say they go freelance because:

• they can’t bear not to write

• they want to see if they can make a living from what they love

• they are trying to balance work and home life

• they don’t enjoy the office environment

• they want to work for themselves.

All of these are great reasons to feel the urge to go freelance. However, whether you should go freelance just for these reasons is a question I’ll answer in a later post.

Now it’s your turn. I know that a lot of you have faced this issue — what were your reasons for deciding to go freelance?

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