Why Blog?
No matter where you are in your career—it’s easy to convince yourself you’ve learnt nothing at all along the way. As an adult, the first day at school doesn’t really feel all that different to the last. Despite a large amount of debt and vast amounts of paperwork completed, there’s little outward sense that much has changed among endless classes and pizza slices.
This lesson has followed me through both my full-time professional career and the freelance one that has grown from it. Even convincing yourself that you know exactly what you’re doing can be a tough task. One that, until recently, was made all the harder when your office is a hastily organised back bedroom.
The answer to the question, of blogging on something you feel you know almost nothing about is an insight into what it’s like to learn and practice almost any skill at all.
Freelance Writing for Beginners
I remember thinking, before learning how to write code, that knowing how to program a computer was some different kind of undefinable skill. I imagined programming to make you somehow smarter and more logical than you were before. Of course, the way I imagined this to be in my head turned out to be utter nonsense.
Certainly, you do pick up some problem-solving tools from studying any difficult skill or task. But, the way learning programming changes your thinking isn’t in some overnight dramatic shift. It is instead, much more subtle in way that your wife calls “annoying” and “infuriating”.
Before even being aware of programming as a career, I thought the same about writing too. I imagined, fancifully, that being a writer was something different than simply sitting down at the keyboard and carving out stuff to put on a page.
The thought of being able to sit down and turn words into cash used to feel closer to magic than merely applied practice. Even now, after doing it for some five years in a row, it’s not something I feel like I know how to do or explain. So then why blog about it?
Having looked through work I do now and the work I’ve have done for the last couple of years, I realised that the things that seem so natural and obvious now would have still seemed semi-magical to me just a couple of years ago. Back then, I’d have found this information extremely valuable to have. The lessons learnt in the process feel more than valuable enough to write down.
Practical Freelancing for non-magicians
This is, in short, an answer to all the freelance courses, workshops, and seminars available out there—those that are worthwhile, those that are a complete scam, and those that fall somewhere in between.
Rather than create a prescriptive ‘how-to’ of freelancing, I decided instead to create an informal community. One that can answer questions, share tips and resources, offer feedback, and act as a general soundboard/social club/local bar to talk about the day-to-day of freelancing and working from home.
Curating this content, this blog is a way for me to add in my own tips, advice, and perspectives that would have saved me a heap of time, money, stress, and reputation along the way. Few things can help a beginner freelancer out as much as a second and third perspective on work and tasks such as invoicing, pricing, and finding new work.
A small community geared towards sharing in the successes and failures that come as a natural part of living life as an online freelancer can be the antidote to a great many problems at any stage of career. Perhaps it can help with yours too. Most of all, these blogs should work to demystify the uncomplicated processes of turning words into cash.
This blog exists primarily because it’s a topic that I get asked about often. It’s something I think many people are interested in—yet also see nothing but barriers in the way of taking the leap into doing it for themselves. Most of these barriers, I think, are self-imposed or at least made of nothing but the unknown.
The truth is, it’s not all that difficult. If it was, I honestly wouldn’t be doing it.
The reality of freelancing is both wonderful and horrifying at once. At times, it can feel like pulling money from out of the air for nothing at all. At others, it can feel like being entirely unemployed for no good reason. Often, these extremes certainly can and do fall within the same week, day, or hour.
It is, without a doubt, the best job I’ve ever had.
Why Freelance?
Recent events are undoubtedly introducing more and more people to freelancing as an option. For many, suddenly put into the position of working from home, much of the mystique and objections around WFH have already been debunked or overcome.
Many have had a practical demonstration of how they can make it work and are looking for ways to supplement their income or build a new income stream from scratch. For some, a taste of life without a commute and free of “Gary from the office” is being cruelly (and unnecessarily) reversed in many companies.
A Gary-free, home office income stream is both entirely possible and practical.
If some of these tips can set even a handful of people off on a successful freelancing path or on the road to writing their own books, blogs, novels, or scripts, then they will be tips well worth sharing.
Creating a community to share with and connecting with colleagues to talk to is something I think can add value and enjoyment to online freelancing.
There will be regular posts, resources, tools, and links available on here for free. For more, to be a part of the growing community of support, or to join in on more personal and detailed discussion on practical freelance life—consider joining the Patreon for immediate access to updates, posts, and content.
About The Author
