Category Archives: Freelance Writing Life

Making Money as a Freelance Writer: What’s Most Important

By on November 8th, 2012

If I were to ask those just starting out what is most important in having a freelance writing career, I’m guessing most would tell me what seems obvious. You have to write well. And it’s true that you do need sufficient writing skills to build a career as a freelance writer, but that’s not what is most important. In fact, excellent writing skills don’t even factor into my top three. Stamina If you’re going to really make it in this career, you have to be willing to go the distance – and it’s probably farther than you think possible. It’s …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Game Changers: Is It Time to Throw in the Freelance Towel?

By on October 25th, 2012

It’s crossed the mind of every freelancer at one point or another, perhaps on the day that a major deal falls through or you learn you’re looking at a divorce or pregnancy. Is there a good time to stop freelance writing? While our knee jerk reaction may be to immediately deny the thoughts of walking away or scaling back, logically there are some times when life requires we reassess plans and make modifications – sometimes big ones. You Need Money Now Freelance writing can earn you some money quickly if you find jobs quickly or you already have a well-established …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Freelancing Tricks: Find a Comfort Zone

By on October 11th, 2012

One of the hardest things to do as a freelancer is also one of the most critical. You need to find a comfort zone in your professional life. If you don’t find a happy medium where you’re driven to succeed without overwhelming yourself with projects and obligations, your professional life will quickly bleed over into your personal life – and soon you find yourself trapped in a freelance career.  Determine Your Goals Everyone writes for a different reason. Some freelancers want to surround themselves with the written word and they cultivate their passion for writing by pursuing a fully-immersed career …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Working from Home and Wasting Time

By on September 13th, 2012

There is a lot of resistance to the idea that working at home makes you lazy. I’d heartily agree that stereotypes are generally unfounded among successful business people who choose to work from home, but I’d also offer up the argument that having worked in a few places in corporate America, people are lazy workers at times no matter where they are stationed for the job. Sadly that includes many of us would-be highly efficient writer folk. Wasting Time, Wasting Money I’m going to be bold and suggest that working from home does in fact make you waste time – …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Profitable Guest Posting

By on August 30th, 2012

Guest posting is popular for several good reasons: Guest posting is an excellent showcase of your skills. Guest posting is a highly targeted form of marketing. Guest posting is an ace-in-the-hole for SEO. Guest posting can be rather profitable. If you raised an eyebrow at my fourth reason, you aren’t thinking about all of the true possibilities of guest posting. What’s Guest Posting? For those who don’t know, guest posting is a rather simple concept. You make a connection with a blog owner. You write an article to be posted on the blog. You include a link back to your …

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Posted in Freelance Writing Business, Work at Home Parents |

Making Big Adjustments as a WAHM

By on August 16th, 2012

It’s that time again! The kids are going back to school! This means my house will in an uproar for a few weeks while we try to get everyone and everything settled again for the school year. While you might expect me to celebrate my kids going back to school as a sign that I’ll have more time in the day to write, I am a bit outside that demographic. I play double-duty ten months of the year as both a WAHM and a WOHM. That means (for those uninitiated in Mom abbreviations) I am both a work-at-home-mom and a …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Why This Freelancer Never Takes Vacations

By on August 2nd, 2012

After many years, I went on a vacation last week. The trip was great, of course, except for one small detail. About two days before we left for Colorado and the cool mountain breezes, my largest client “changed direction” overnight. My primary contact was laid off and my regular blogging commitments stopped effective immediately. Not exactly the sort of send off I was hoping for, but not too much out of the norm in the world of freelance. In this case a new CEO chose to change things up in the company I was working with. In the past I’ve …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

Freelancing My Way to a Real Vacation

By on July 19th, 2012

I have a bit of a confession to make. I haven’t gone on a real vacation in about ten years. I know. Shoot me now. I do have some good reasons for the lack of travel. My husband is a homebody so he’s not struck with wanderlust. When I do travel, I’m usually going to see family for a few days with plenty of obligations along with a bit of fun. We went to Disney World for a day…since we were in town already to see a family member in ICU and it turns out the hospital isn’t a great …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents |

How to Furnish Your Home Office on a Budget

By on July 11th, 2012

When we work from home as freelancers, sometimes we don’t have much control over our work environment. For example, some writers work from their kitchen tables. A benefit of working in a pre-established area of the home is that you don’t have to worry about furnishing a separate office space. But what if you do have a freelance office, but not a huge budget to furnish it? No matter how big your home office is or how it’s laid out, there are plenty of ways to furnish it on a budget. My own office was furnished this way over the years, and …

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Posted in Finance, Working From Home |

Writing at Home: Can I Do This?

By on July 5th, 2012

It’s not an unusual question. We all wonder from time to time if this world of freelancing from home is worth the extra time and effort it takes to be successful. Naturally we usually find plenty of reasons that it is, in fact, worth the hassles and stress. To name a few: freelance writers who work at home enjoy schedule flexibility, more time with family, freedom to enjoy other daily pursuits and the lack of any office politics, drama or boss. But there are things about freelancing at home that cause us to doubt from time to time, and if …

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Posted in Work at Home Parents, Working From Home |