A Day in the Life of...
A freelance writer/researcher and part time lecturer. While a good deal of my time is taken up with paid writing, I also undertake contract research for both voluntary agencies and my local university - where I supervise a small number of postgraduate students, I also teach an undergraduate module at another univeristy. When I talk or write about myself and my work however, I usually refer to myself as a freelance writer, because that is how most of my time is spent and that is what I enjoy the most.
Most of my week is pretty manic. On Monday (just like today) I will spend the morning on emails and writing tasks. I try to divide my time between different projects because I find that less tiring. In the afternoon I meet with one of my students for supervision then I pick up some shopping on the way home. Early evening means more writing and probably some research writing; then I cook dinner (most evenings my husband will clear away) and get back to my writing. I also try to spend some time catching up with other writers at places like digital point and blog catalog, or I may update one of my blogs and hang around for a while commenting on other people's work and responding to any comments on my own.
Tuesday mornings generally involve a meeting of some kind (often research related) then writing in the afternoon and again in the evening after dinner - I may take an hour or so to watch some tv and call one of my children - only one of them is still at home. I try to keep Wednesdays as a writing only day but some weeks I will meet with a student after lunch then back to writing in the evening. For the last three years I have taught a spring semester module at a university in Surrey. This year the class and my office hours are on a Friday so I travel up Thursday either afternoon or evening depending on what else I have to do. I usually stay over at my son's flat and come home Friday evening to some more writing.
I usually take Saturday off apart from checking emails in the morning. We either go out or stay at home with a film or the tv depending on how we feel. Sunday lunchtime is usually family time and the rest of the day is given over to writing and catching up on jobs I haven't done during the week. If you choose to be a writer and researcher then you can expect that much of your life will be spent doing just those things - which is great if you love what you are doing, and I do.
Get Paid to Write
If your aim is to give up the day job and get paid to write then you really should be writing every day. Many people say that they envy those who can stay at home and write for a living but when asked what they write or how often they write the answer is often "I don't have the time". The fact of the matter is that a writer writes whether or not they are getting paid for it. A lot of the writing that writers do has no direct relationship to what they earn as most professional writers spend at least some time helping others to fulfil their dream of freelancing.
If you are serious rather than just being attracted to the idea of being a writer then you have to start somewhere. This may seem like oft repeated advice but if you want to write for a living then start by writing articles in your niche.
You may wonder what your niche is, well if there is anything that you like to write about or something you know well like gardening or cooking for example then write articles on those subjects and submit them to article directories. Part of getting to a position where you can write for cash is getting your work out there, whether that is submitting your work to article directories or starting a blog. If you have stuff already published on the web then it gives you an online portfolio of clips where you can direct potential clients. If you are serious about this and work hard then it won't be too long before you start to get paid to write.
Want to Freelance?
If you are a writer and you want to break into the freelance market then there are a number of things that you can do to speed up the process.
1. Get yourself a blog like this one and post content on areas that interest you on a regular basis.
2. Keep your content in one broad area like this and try to keep things informative like this.
3. Comment on other people's blogs
4. Join writer's forums
5. Submit articles for free or for some form of royalty at sites like this. You will even find some of my writing at this site.
Submit your blog and perhaps your first website to social bookmarking sites such as blog catalogue and technorati. You should also submit them to all the major search engines. All of these things will give you some degree of web presence which you will need.This was how I first got started as a freelance writer