Thoughts on Freelance Writing Advice

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As a freelance writer, if you’re looking for writing advice you’re certain to find it at every turn these days. There are literally hundreds of writing sites available and many of these are in a blog format, providing updated content on a weekly or even daily basis. For me, my email fills up nearly every morning with new blog posts from sites I subscribe to. The amount of information is insane.

What amazes me is that a lot of the advice is pretty darned good. I think that in the past few years, only a handful have been so disagreeable as to warrant a comment from me stating my opposition. When you think about the numbers, that’s not a bad percentage.

When I think about writing advice, I’m dividing it into two primary categories: general writing advice and freelance writing. Certainly, there is a great deal more general writing advice out there and most of it is fairly agreeable. The narrowed down niche of freelance writing is a bit different though. Freelance writing advice is more about particular strategies rather than how to dot your i’s. A lot of the advice is good, but there is a lot of room for disagreement as well.

I find it fascinating to look through my Twitter stream and see the variety of creative writing posts that are available to us. Freelance writing strategies abound although when you biol it down, there are really only a few subjects to cover. Getting clients, keeping clients, client horror stories, organization, finding work. That pretty much covers the gamut, wouldn’t you say?

So if there are so few categories of topics, how can there be so many posts, so much advice? Well, it’s because each of us have our own take on a given topic based on our experiences. What’s great is that no one person has a lock on what is the best advice or what is the best way to get it across. Some of us are blessed with a real writing gift and can make an ordinary tips post soar, others have to work at it and still the readers are sore.

After a few years of following writing blogs, something has got to really have a unique spin on it to grab my attention. Even then, I tend to scoop whatever tidbits that apply into my short term memory and the rest of the advice is quickly sent to my internal recycle bin. That’s just how it goes.

When I was starting out as a writer the advice I was finding was invaluable and if you write writing advice this is an important thing. There is always someone new to the game, someone who can learn from your advice. Don’t worry about being redundant. Don’t worry about writing something that is not earth-shattering new. Be true to yourself and your readers. Chances are you will connect with them in ways that no one else has.

Written by:

George