How Much Of A Location Independent Writer Are You?

Last week, Claire van den Heever guest posted here on Get Paid To Write Online about being a location independent writer.

Up until reading Claire’s post, I didn’t really consider myself a location independent writer. However, I hadn’t really spent much time looking at what people would consider to be a location independent lifestyle, so I was basing my views on what little knowledge I had.

Going on the understanding I had — which was working from the middle of a field if I wanted to — I did want to be location independent and write from, for instance, any hotel room any where in the world.

Reading Claire’s post made me think a little about the whole subject and after a little further reading, I realised that I was — in one sense at least — a location independent writer.

And the thing is, I believe most freelance writers are, too.

The problem is, I don’t think the majority of writers take advantage of it.

Over the past few months, I’ve been spending a lot of time working between home and in and around London, which is about 250 miles away. I generally carry out the same work I do in London, at home, except the difference being rather sitting at my dining room table (since our spare bedroom officially became a bedroom, I effectively hot desk it around the house now whenever I’m working), I’m sat in an office of some type, in a hotel bar or in a family’s house working.

I also end up doing work while I’m on the road if I’m driving, checking and responding to e-mails when I stop at services or work as normal on my laptop if I’m on the train.

In fact, the one place I don’t work — and I’ve only just realised this this morning — is when I’m in the bathroom, specifically the shower (I admitted to friends and colleagues a while ago that I occasionally check my e-mails if I’m using the bathroom for, well, something other than a shower and I expected to receive a mixture of laughs and strange looks in return — the truth is most people were in agreement!).

It doesn’t matter where I am, as as long as I’ve got my mobile phone with me and / or my laptop, I’ll generally be working — or have been working — at some point throughout the day.

The more I think about it, the more location independent I am — and the more I love the fact I can work from anywhere.

There’s no doubt that this career can get a little lonely at time — this is something I’ll be talking about in the coming weeks — but for the most part, I absolutely love this way of life.

(as a bit of a side note here, understanding that I am location independent has made me realise that if I’ve just come across this fact, what else have I got to come across? Just another point to prove that freelance writing is a fantastic, exciting career!)