Capturing Chaos

If independence in your choices is a high priority for you, how far you can take that will depend on how much money you need to earn. If freelancing is to be your full-time career, you probably will always have to balance your own preferences with the demands of others. “Others” includes sites that pay for content, so even if you don’t have a roster of clients who pay you for assignments written to their specifications, there are always some constraints on a writer’s freedom.

Working for others may be easier if you can view it as temporary—just a step toward eventual independence. Whether that independence is even possible will depend on your skills, both those you have now and those you will need to acquire. Without expertise on one or more topics, or the ability to gain that expertise fairly quickly, earning a living as an independent freelancer will be difficult at best, and maybe impossible.

There are a multitude of options for developing a writing career that allows you flexibility and independence, but all require a commitment of time and effort. An important step is researching the various methods and their pros and cons. The path you take may not be a typical one, and may even be one that few professionals would recommend. But one of the advantages of freelancing is that it’s not set in concrete. Trying different paths is not only possible, it’s the best way to learn what works for you.

Part one: Freelance Writing: Find Your Own Path

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