Freelance Writing Behind The Scenes is a new upcoming series I’m planning to write after my Freelance Writing Guide For New Freelancers has finished. I came up with this idea because I believe many new freelance writers would love to know what we actually do when we work from home.
While I won’t record myself to keep some sense of privacy, I will try to write these posts with as much detail as I can possibly provide. You will be getting front row seats. With or without popcorn (if you can accept the virtual kind anyway). At this stage I’m not entirely sure about the structure I’m going to provide, but I promise to make it interesting enough.
Freelance Writing Behind The Scenes will allow newcomers to peek behind the curtain of a freelance writer’s home stage. I suppose you can play big brother by watching me through the posts I will write. No juicy details though.
Unless you want to see how my birds do the twist.
While mulling over what to write for this next freelance writing series, I mentally stepped back in time and think about what I wanted to know and see when I first started out. This gave me the frame to work with.
This upcoming freelance writing series will provided a total workable picture for you once I’m done to basically allow anybody to follow suit doing the same things, using the same tools to get started.
From listing all my tools, applications, hardware and other writing toys I use and have used to get me to where I am today, I can show you how I structure my day. In short, you will gain insight into a working writer’s life.
I’m actually excited about this, since it will be the foundation for any freelancer and provide a great guide to getting started.
While my Freelance Writing Guide For New Freelancers contains a lot of useful and important information for writers, it is more so a resource guide.
This new writing series will actually be a do it yourself manual. Once I’m done with it, I might even turn it into an ebook to keep it all together in one place. I also realize that I could charge for this and sell the information, but right now I neither have the inclination nor the want to do this.
In some ways I see this as some type of paying it forward as a thank you for your patronage to my blog. Even if you are a new reader, you are welcome to use this information and run with it (I actually want you to).
Did you realize that this month of July marks the one year celebration of this blog Freelance Writing? Yes, I find it hard to believe myself. It seems it’s been ages ago when I first started out and the past year has been nothing but amazing for me. If there is a word to describe exhilaration with even more force, it’s the one I would choose to describe my journey so far.
Therefore this upcoming freelance writing series will be a present from me to you for believing in me and sticking around.
Freelance Writing Behind The Scenes will be a road map for new freelance writers and I hope to inspire many of you to join me on this amazing road. See you around.
Monika
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Hmm, I wrote a post yesterday about “Behind the Scenes: Tour our office” giving people a behind the scenes look at how we work. Very interesting how you just had the same idea a day later
Even noting “I won’t record myself” (like I did).
We were planning on doing a similar series, obviously. But either way I’ve never seen anybody write how how they work which is why I am doing this particular series.
@ Alex: Mmhhh, not sure what I shall make of this comment, but I leave it up to you to figure this out.
Actually come to think of it, that’s been twice in a row you’ve come here and insinuated at something. At least it feels like this to me. I hope to god I’m wrong.
I’m curious as to how many word you write a day. I know it varies depending on topic and the amount of research required but I find I am absolutely stuffed once I get to a couple of thousand! Also do you worry about running out of ideas. Ive abandoned more than 1 blog because I ran out of ideas and now I have a regular paid posting job I am a bit worried that I will run into the same thing. Or just end up repeating myself when I forget that I have already said that. How do you keep track of where u have posted what to avoid that? Sorry too many questions!
@ Lissie: These are good questions and I’ll try to answer them for you.
While I don’t keep a running log of how many words I write daily I would estimate them to be between 3000-5000 words on average judging by my diary. On some mad days it is even more. But take this as an average.
As for running out of ideas, no I don’t worry since I’m passionate about the subject and always find new angles to write about the topics I do. This doesn’t mean I don’t get writers block at times though.
I tend not to worry because I know worrying would only block my creativity.
To avoid double posting the same stuff I purposely plan my posts ahead of time. I also make it a habit to always check my past posts if I’m unsure as to whether I talked about this in the same frame of mind before.
Does this answer your questions?
Thanks Monica - that’s really helpful! I have started keeping a list of blog titles and posted dates per a site so that I can see at a glance my titles and also it will make invoicing quicker!
I think I need to work on just getting my speed of writing up: its taking too long at the moment to make a reasonable living from - at least when living in Australia.
Again Thanks
Lis
@ Lissie: One trap we freelance writers can fall into is the “get it perfect” syndrome. What I mean is we could take hours to perfect an article when it would be well written within half the time or less.
Getting up speed is definitely a priority otherwise you will be working for peanuts.
It sounds though you are on the right track, so keep it up. You will find with lots of practice things will fall into place.
Monika - this sounds like a brilliant idea. But can your birds really do the twist? I am sitting here trying to imagine you teaching them this.
@ Cath: LOL, I wish they would. But they actually did the “you know what” the other day which was awesome to see. Our princess who has been part of the family for some 6 years now has finally found a boyfriend and it looks we might get little babies in the future.
There are a lot of things I’m struggling with as I seek to make money doing freelance writing, but the 2 I’d most like help with are these:
How to budget my time and plan out how long something will take. I have this problem in my whole life, but especially with writing, tasks take longer than I think they will to complete.
How to find time to continue to promote myself and look for new jobs when I’m under a deadline for an existing job, and still get enough sleep at night.
If your series touches on either of these, I, for one, would find it helpful.
@ Beelissa: Stay posted, I will try to incorporate these since they are an integral part of a freelancers life. Since this series will be more a birds eye view at what I did, do in my business, you might only see what works for me, but in the end, exactly the same might work for you too.
Thank you for voicing your concerns, it helps me to help you guys and I appreciate any and all questions from my readers.
Hey Monika, cool idea. This should be pretty interesting. Looking forward to what you’ve got.
Sounds pretty good a series, and I am looking forward to it. It will be helpful to understand further how writers work. Although I am not a writer but it may provide that little hint when selecting writers for projects.
And yea, Happy Birthday to your blog. Hope everything’s well with ya. I gotcha in my feed reader, I’m not here but I am still reading!
Looking forward to the series, Monika. You and Court do a great job of trying to make things simple and straightforward for everyone.
@ Andrew @ Ed @ Medic: Thank you guys, I appreciate your interest and the nice words. Being mentioned with Court in a single sentence is a big honor for me.
[...] are only three more posts to go in the series including this one. The next series will be about freelance writing behind the scenes and give a more insightful view at my life and what I struggle with every day. It isn’t what [...]