I don't know about ready for the fast lane, I seem to have been on the hard shoulder recently as this should have been posted on Saturday as part of the Freelancing series.
Check your handbrake and see that you are in neutral and start the engine, clutch down and into gear.
When you are set for take off, there are some things that you need to have in place before you start hunting for clients. You should have a website, or at least a blog, the free ones on Wordpress are good, but if you want to earn a bit of adsense money as well then get yourself a blogger blog - bear in mind that you will need a website at some point.
You need a blog because it is a place where you can direct potential clients who will want to see your writing style and quality. Your blog doesn't have to be a writing blog, although for many freelance writers, blogging about the occupation they love is second nature, and most writers like to give each other a hand and a bit of information and advice.
Back to front as always, you will need a space to work, even before you set up a blog. You may not have room for a home office and have to settle for a corner of the room, just try to establish a place where you go to write. You should have a diary, planner or notebook, or even an online application, to keep a record of your writing activities, what you've done and what you plan to do. You should also promote your blog on the social networking sites such as Plurk and Twitter, Blogging Zoom is also a good place to promote what you have written.
If you don't have one already then set up a Feedburner account so that you can offer your posts via an RSS feed. You may already be doing all these things and if so, that's fine, other posts in this series may be of more use to you.
When you write a blog post it is worth rewriting it and then submitting the second version to one of the online ezines where you can leave links back to your blog or website. Both your blog and your aticles will serve as your writing clips to start with. Eventually you will need to set up some sort of portfolio as most clients will want to see whether your style is suitable for them.
It shouldn't take you too long to get things rolling on the activities I've mentioned above. When I started several years ago, the places that I first wrote for were similar to those that Sharon over at Get Paid to Write. I started with Blogitive and Review Stream, these are very low paying and you shouldn't spend too much time there but Review Stream in particular is a good place to direct clients to some of your writing.
Review stream will pay you $2 for a good review of a product, book, film or place, and if your piece is less than about 400 words they will pay you a bulk rate of 40cents. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't soon be looking elsewhere, just that it is a good way of getting some clips and a bit of cash.
When you sign up for an account at Blogitive, they post writing tasks and you have to write a review of a website or product with the link in the correct place, and if your post is approved you will be paid $5 for around 150-200 words, with posts either side of it.
If you need to make some money quickly, then sign up for an account at Digital Point there you will find people looking for content and you may be able to pick up some 1cent a word jobs - don't be conned by some people who want you to write a sample of their choosing with no pay - if you write a sample you are entitled to ask to be paid for the work, if the anser is no then move on.
Ok, the title was misleading in that you may not be in the fast lane yet, but if you get through most of the things I've suggested here in the next week or so, then you will be picking up speed for the next step. I love what I do, but there are times when it feels as though everything is going at speed I can barely keep up with, but I know that I will catch up and get things done, because that is what freelancers do.
So, are you ready for the freelancing fast lane?