How to Avoid Loneliness as a Freelance Writer

Writing can be a lonely profession, but it doesn’t have to be. There are ways around the social isolation for people who like to write and freelance, but don’t want to live like a hermit.

Find a group that meets weekly and join it

Pick a group that interests you. It may be related to writing or it may be related to the subjects you like to write about. The goal is to meet other people with similar interests and have discussions about those interests. This can help give you ideas for future writing projects and develop resources you can contact when you need more information.

Write somewhere new

Writing is a very mobile profession. Laptop computers make it easy to move around and even stay connected to the Internet, but paper and a pen are all you need in many cases. Get out and explore the world around you, it will help your writing.

Make online connections

The big plus of services like Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging is that you can stop what you are doing for a couple of minutes and connect with other people. It isn’t the same as a face-to-face conversation, but sometimes all you need is a little contact to remove the feeling of isolation.

Find a writing partner

There are all kinds of writing partners. Some may actually be in business with you, but others may simply be people who work in the same profession and want to have another person around to help them focus. You may meet to write together, or you may just stay in contact over the phone or via email. Having a writing partner increases your accountability. You know someone is going to check on your progress.

Rent an office or a cubicle

One way to both get out among other people and feel more businesslike is to rent an office or a cubicle. Craigslist is a great place to look for workspaces. With the current economy and the number of businesses that are downsizing, it is easy to find cheap space in most metropolitan areas. Many of these places come complete with Internet access, phones and conference rooms. Not only will working in a corporate area give you more human contact, it may also lead to paying opportunities as you get to know the people and businesses around you.

Don’t Make Your Freelance Writing Career Just About Work

I have discussed the importance of persistence and focus as part of your freelance writing career. Freelance writing means running your own business, and that means working hard. That doesn’t mean you should make yourself miserable though. The last thing you want to do is feel like you are tethered to your computer ten or more hours a day and that you should never take time for yourself. If you want to be miserable and overworked, you might as well get a regular job.

One of the advantages of a freelance writing career is that you don’t have to answer to some other person’s schedule. You make your own days. There will be times when you have to go all out in order to meet a deadline. Unlike a regular job though, you do have a certain amount of flexibility as a freelance writer and you need to take advantage of that on occasion. Here are a few of the things I do to take advantage of my freelance status.

Go for a walk

My personal goal for 2010 is to walk 1000 miles. That means I need to walk an average of three miles a day. I live in a small community that is surrounded by open desert. A three mile walk takes me about an hour, so I head off into the desert and take a look around me. I never know what I am going to find. I run across animals and plants that I have never seen, and the occasional rusted remains of someone’s car, camp, or desert party. I listen to music or audiobooks and I enjoy the fact that I am free to do this whenever I want to.

Go to lunch

For me, the closest real restaurant is twenty miles away, so when I go out to lunch it isn’t for a quick bite. There is an Asian buffet I like to go to. I take a notebook with me and I write down ideas as they come to me. I don’t take my computer because I don’t want it to feel like work. It is simply time for me to relax and think about what I want to do. I don’t do this every day. There are times when I am so focused on work that I eat a Clif bar and just keep writing. About once a week though, I take my two to three hour lunch and enjoy it.

Take a nap or meditate

Employers frown on people taking naps at a regular job, at least in the USA. That is unfortunate because after about four hours of work, a lot of people get a little sleepy. If I start to feel like that, I generally go sit in my recliner, put my feet up, and listen to one of the many meditation podcasts I get for free from Zen Worlds. I try to meditate, but half the time I just nod off. The advantage of doing this in the recliner though is that I’m bound to get up again in about twenty minutes. By then I am refreshed and ready to work.

Write from somewhere new

There are times when you need to get work done, but you want to escape your usual surroundings. My wife and I have taken several small trips while I have been freelancing, and attended a couple of conferences. Because I freelance, I never had to ask permission to travel. It didn’t matter where I was working from, as long as I completed my assignments. This is the sort of freedom you have as a freelancer, and you should take advantage of it.

Do what works for you

These are examples of how I take advantage of my freelance lifestyle. Freelancing eliminated over three hours a day of commute time for me, which means I have more time to spend with my wife and my friends while still working the same amount of hours as I did before. Find your own ways to take advantage your status as a freelancer. Spend time with your children. Write from the beach. Take an hour for yourself in the middle of the day. Do what feels right, just don’t get carried away. You are still running a business, it just happens to be one you are in control of.

Why Persistence Means More than Talent

I know quite a few people who can write well, but aren’t writers. They have the skill to write, but they lack the persistence to make it a career. Writing is a skill that most people have to some extent or another. There are plenty of people who don’t care about writing at all that can still do it well. They had good teachers in school and the learned what they were taught. That doesn’t mean they want to do anything with writing specifically.

It takes more than desire

The more problematic set of people are the ones who want to be writers, but don’t write. They like to read books and think about writing one. They like to watch movies and think about being a screenwriter. They have the desire, but they do nothing with it. Even if they do write that novel or screenplay, they don’t really see it through to completion. They don’t edit it until it is perfect. They don’t write a second one to build up their skill. They have enough willpower in them for one work, but not enough to make writing a career.

Easy isn’t always good

Willpower and persistence matter more than talent in most fields, and especially in writing. In fact, having a natural skill can sometimes be a hindrance. When a skill comes to a person naturally, that person often has less desire to improve. When I was in elementary school I was a math wiz. I could add, subtract, multiply and divide in my head easily and always got the best grades. When it came time to take algebra though, math suddenly became hard for me. At that point, I needed to try much harder, but I was used to not having to make an effort. I got average grades and moved on to other things. I wasn’t looking for a challenge. I just wanted to be good at it.

Sooner or later it gets tough for everyone

The same is true of people who are great at the basics of writing. A person with perfect grammar and an excellent vocabulary can write well, at first. It gets hard for them though, when they actually have to put 70,000 words together into a novel that makes sense and engages the reader. It gets hard when they have to write a heartfelt poem. It gets hard when they have to write a direct-mail advertisement that brings in customers. It gets hard when they have to write a one-hundred page guide to using a piece of software. People who have had to work at their writing though, and know they need to improve, are more likely to be up to one of those challenges. They know going in that it is going to be hard.

Writing is only the first hard step

To embrace writing as a career you need to be persistent. The pay isn’t always great and the work isn’t always interesting. Writing 70,000 words is hard. Editing 70,000 words is excruciating. Having somebody tear apart those 70,000 words and tell you it is not good enough is devastating. The career in writing belongs to the person who gets up the next day and gets back to work, either improving what they have or creating something new.

Building a writing career

If you want a career as a writer, you need to push yourself. You need to write when there are a dozen distractions, both pleasant and unpleasant. You need to see projects through to completion. You need to bounce back from criticism and even learn from it. You need to care about writing enough to stick with it through a hundred bad times, or you need to let it go. There is no shame in writing strictly as a hobby. There is no reason you can’t write for fun. There are easier and even more rewarding careers out there. If you want writing to be your career though, be prepared to push through the difficult parts and see where your path takes you.

My Move from Unemployed Worker to Freelance Writer

A few days ago I wrote about the things you should consider when moving from a job to freelancing. In it, I admitted that I went back to freelancing because I found myself out of a job. This is a different situation from a voluntary move to freelancing, and comes with its own set of problems and motivations. Here are the steps I took when I lost my job.

Analyzing the situation

When I found myself unemployed and looking for options, I had a few things on my side and a few unique problems on the horizon. On the plus side, I had an employed wife and a few thousand dollars in the bank. I also had this blog, which generates enough income to provide some cushion, but not enough to pay all of my bills.

What I did not have was a single freelance client. For a while, I had balanced freelancing with my last job, but when my job grew more demanding I stopped freelancing. Additionally, although my wife was employed at the time, she had already made plans to take the next year off to finish her Master’s Degree. This meant I only had about two months before our income took another major hit.

Establishing an income with easy sources

As you know, there are some low-paying but easy-to-land opportunities on the web. I’m not going to discuss which service I used, but I found an online content provider and started churning our quick, moneymaking content for them. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable work, but I was able to start earning again within days of losing my job. I made about $2500 over the course of two months. It allowed me to feel productive while I looked for more lucrative opportunities. It was also a steady freelance gig that I could quit at any time without repercussions.

Cutting expenses

Like most people faced with a major cut in pay, my wife and I started to cut expenses. We dropped our premium cable package. We minimized our mobile phone plan. We deferred my student loans. We went out less and shopped much more carefully. Some expenses just naturally faded away. I was no longer commuting 130 miles round trip to work and eating out with my co-workers. My wife and I also went down to one car. That last expense cut wasn’t entirely voluntary; our minivan caught on fire.

Using my social network

Once I had some money coming in, I concentrated on improving my presence on the web. I upgraded my online portfolio site. I updated my resume on sites such as Monster, Dice and LinkedIn. I let my friends on FaceBook know I was looking for work. I also had lunch with friends and former colleagues, some of whom were also out of work.

Because I did this, I got a few leads. One of these was at a company I had interviewed with before. The interviews had gone well, but they had been unable to offer me a full-time position due to budget cuts. I contacted them and let them know I was available as a freelancer.  They had a project for me and we started working together. One project led to another and I maintained them as a steady source of income for almost six months.

Expanding my base

I have yet to find another client that provides me with the steady work of the first big client, but nine months after losing my regular job, I have a number of smaller clients that are keeping me afloat. In many ways I prefer these smaller clients, because they provide more variety and stability than focusing on one big client for all of my income. Concentrating on one big client is almost the same as having a regular job. You become reliant, and that is dangerous. My one big client knows I’m there if they need me again, and I stay in contact.

Moving on

My goal now is steady expansion. Because I also have my blog, I am not entirely reliant on freelancing for my income, but I am entirely self-employed. My wife and I are able to pay our bills, but I want to do more than just get by and stay afloat. We’re a two car family again, but we are still shopping carefully and avoiding major purchases that we would love to make. My wife will graduate in another two months and probably return to her old employer. This will ease some burdens, but it also means that student loans will once again be in the picture. I have my own number in mind for how much I need to make, and I will keep pushing until I reach that number.

The Changing World for Writers

It is difficult to pick just one career for your whole life. It is difficult because not only do your own tastes and desires change, but the world changes too. In the 1960s and 1970s, reporters used typewriters. The fax machine was startling new technology. In the eighties, reporters typed their articles on computers, and had access to a few elite online tools such as Nexus, but they mostly worked in the same ways that they had before. In the 1990s, newspapers and the Internet began to merge, but no one knew what model they would take. Newspapers tried to be the same, and it cost them. In the 2000s, people began to bypass newspapers and print media altogether. It became possible to strike out on your own and gain a genuine following online.

Print media is in trouble

Now, as we enter a new decade, print media is in genuine trouble. Newspapers have long been in decline and magazines are following, sunk not only by the speed of online information, but by the rising costs of mail delivery. Book publishing is also making rapid changes. Bestsellers are still bestsellers, but for the first time, online books are starting to make real headway. The iPad and the Kindle are now solid sources for books. This has made self-publishing and small press publishing more viable than they have been in years. When you can search for what you want online, the press to get on shelves at stores is lessened somewhat. It becomes more important to be the book that people search for, rather than the book that publishers promote.

You are not as ready as you think

If you are on the cusp of the technological wave, don’t pat yourself on the back just yet. Sure, blogs are more popular, but a livable income as a blogger is still a challenge. The same goes for podcasting and social media. You hear about the people who make money at it, but you hear about them because they are the exception rather than the rule. People are more immune to advertising than ever before, and if they aren’t buying something, you aren’t going to make much money.

There is no roadmap

Change is in motion, and accelerating. The financial landscape of publishing and media in general is in the midst of a major transition, and there is no definitive idea of where it will end up. This makes picking a career, especially in the writing field, a tricky matter. We currently live in a crowded publishing world. Anyone who wants to publish can. That brings great freedom, but it pushes the level of competition through the roof. When media was controlled by a few gatekeepers, the goal was to get past the gate. Now, the big gatekeepers are still there, and can still offer a measure of success, but your true competition is the crowd. When everyone can be heard, it becomes increasingly difficult to stand out. When someone else is offering what you have for free, it is very hard to charge.

Fortune favors the adaptable

My point is that if you want to have a career as a writer, be prepared for change. Be prepared for an entire world of competition, but also a world of possible readers. Understand that the way you make money writing today may soon change and that you will have to adapt to that change. We see this most in the freelance world, but don’t be surprised if corporate writing world follows. No one is immune to change.

Are you ready to move to a full-time freelance writing career?

Some people choose freelancing, and other people have it thrust upon them. I have freelanced off and on for years, but I only recently returned to it full-time. Like many people, the bad economy caught up to me and I found myself out of a job and unable to find a new one. My job search was made doubly difficult by my location. My last job had been a 130 mile round-trip commute, and I just wasn’t willing to put myself through that again. That limited my employment choices and made a return to freelance writing much more attractive.

Despite the situation, freelancing was still my choice. I could have devoted all of my time to finding another regular job. I could have taken a lesser job, or at least tried to find one. I could have just sat on the couch and watched TV, waiting for circumstances to change. That last one may not seem like much of an option, but I have seen plenty of people give it a try.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before jumping into full-time freelancing:

Are you dissatisfied with what you are doing now?

Most people contemplate freelance writing because they are dissatisfied with their current situation. They don’t like their job or they don’t like how little time their job leaves for them to write. They think they are meant for better things and freelance writing comes to mind.

Dissatisfaction is a reason to try freelance writing, but it is not a good indicator of success. Dissatisfaction with a regular job is common and freelance writing is no picnic, especially for a poorly motivated worker. Often times, when a person thinks time is the reason they aren’t writing, it turns out that they weren’t really going to write no matter how much time they had. There is a difference between a pleasant sounding alternative and reality. Dissatisfaction is a start though.

Have you tried freelance writing part-time?

Jumping from a 40-hour-a-week job to full-time freelance writing is not one smooth step. If you aren’t actively freelancing while employed, you are going to have a hard time transitioning to full-time freelancing. There is a learning curve to any job, and starting freelancing from square one without an income is difficult. You will want some ongoing clients or at minimum some experience with freelance writing before you try to make the jump to full-time. Prove to yourself that the career is important enough for you to sacrifice some time in the present before you decide to make it a profession in the future.

Have you saved up money?

It is important to have money set aside when you start freelancing full-time. Starting with enough money in savings to pay all of your bills for six months is a good start. Having a year or two years worth of money is an even better start. A good way to start saving for a full-time freelance career is to put all of your part-time freelancing money into a savings account, living only off your regular income until you are ready to make the leap.

Have you done your research?

There are several things you need to know when you strike out to be a full-time freelancer. The first is what your income requirements are. What will it take to pay your bills? Figure out just how many clients you are going to have to land and what you will have to charge if you want to be self-sufficient. Remember as well that you will have to find a way to take care of things such as medical and dental expenses, as well as other bills that only crop up sporadically but are bound to show up eventually. Office equipment needs replacing and upgrading. Cars need fixing. Houses need repairs. Christmas comes along once a year. Be realistic about what you are going to spend.

Once you know what you need, you have to figure out how you are going to meet that number. This means that you decide what areas you want to focus on (writing type, client type, locale) and have a marketing plan in place for reaching the people you want as clients. In fact, you will want to do more than research those markets, you will want to already be approaching your potential clients before you quit your job. Don’t leave it all until the day you finally stop working your regular job.

Do you have self discipline?

The final piece in the puzzle is to think long and hard about whether or not you have the discipline for self employment. Life without a boss sounds great, but it means that you have to be the one to push yourself to achieve. You not only have to be able to complete the assignments that come your way, you have to work hard when you don’t have any assignments. You have to market yourself and land new jobs. You have to make yourself sit in the office and work when it is a beautiful day and no one would complain if you put everything off until tomorrow.

A full-time freelance writing career is not for everyone, but for the people who can handle it, freelancing can be a great way to make a living. If you feel confident about your answers to these questions, they you are probably ready to make the leap to full-time freelancing.

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