How Many Hours During The Day Do You Spend On Your Freelance Writing Career?

By Dan Smith

Last week, Carol Tice made a post on her blog about practical tips for freelance writers, from freelance writers and as you’d expect, the post was really informative.

Although each point mentioned could be talked about in-depth, the second one that was mentioned in Carol’s list — relating to how much time you spend outside away from your ‘writing cave’ — made me stop and think.

For the past two years at least, I’ve focused the work side of my life on freelance writing.

Even though I’ve been working in a salaried role alongside my freelance writing career, as I knew my daily tasks from the salaried role inside out and I could effectively carry them out on autopilot, I had no need to think about that side of my work in-depth and it has seemed that any work related thoughts I’ve had have been around freelance writing.

However, it wasn’t until I recently accepted another salaried role which has meant I’ve had to spend time focusing on that that I’ve realised just how wrapped up I’ve been in the freelance writing world.

On a morning, I would wake up and while still in bed, check my e-mails on my iPhone.

I’d then jump in the shower and while getting ready, have a look on Twitter to see if there was anything I needed / could reply to (I use Twitter almost exclusively for business purposes).

Working on writing projects at various points throughout the day, any breaks I had would be spent on freelance writing blogs, interacting with other writers in the community, pitching ideas to editors, contacting potential clients or replying to e-mails, all related in some way to freelance writing.

Although I’ve always thought that this was a positive experience — being so heavily involved in the freelance writing world — it’s only since I’ve been effectively forced to think about something else in terms of work that I’ve realised being so focused on freelance writing isn’t necessarily all good.

When you’re so involved with a topic, it can be difficult to think about something else and your concentration can start to lapse — we’ve all been there where we’ve worked on a certain project for so long that the words on the screen start to blur, the creative juices are reduced to a trickle and the only way to get back on track is to take a break for a while.

By focusing on another work related topic, it’s given me a break from freelance writing — one that I didn’t think I needed but which I obviously did — and I’ve found that things have been different, in a positive way, ever since.

I’m focusing better, words are flowing easier and everything seems to be a whole lot more organized.

Of course, there’s every chance that this could just be psychological and nothing has changed at all, but I feel confident when saying that focusing my attention on something other than freelance writing in recent weeks has only benefited my freelance writing career.

How many breaks do you take from freelance writing during the day? How about during the week? Do you have anything else to focus on or do you think that being so intensely involved in freelance writing is benefiting you immensely?

Image: Graham Loveland