Whether you’re an astronaut or a banker or a farmer or anything in between, once you have a few years of experience under your belt, you cringe at the mistakes you made when you first entered the industry. Freelance writing is no different. Here are seven things I wish I would have know when I was a beginner:

You don’t have to work for $3 per article – higher rates aren’t just possible; they’re the norm.
Not every client is going to like your writing style, and some are mean or condescending about it.
Get a deposit before you start or use an …read more

As you may know if you’re a long-term reader here, I work a part time job at a day care. Much of the time, I’m in the infant room (under 2 years old), but I also spend time with the toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age groups. It never ceases to amaze me what they teach me.
Often, the lessons these little minds teach me are really relevant to writing and my freelance career. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve learned from them…quotes, straight from the horses mouth.
“Sometimes things are boring, but you have to learn them anyway.” – age 4
Too true, my …read more

Darn! It’s cloudy and chilly here in San Diego – and it’s been like this for several days. Okay, I’m a total weather wuss… but the gloom makes me want to go to bed with a novel, not write. At least I think I can blame the weather.
Well, there’s another truth here too. The chapter I need to be working on is, frankly, boring to me at the moment. On the whole, the project is interesting, but I’m feeling sort of stuck and definitely uninspired.
What I will do is write… for at least an hour. What do you do when …read more

I chuckled when I saw the headline over at Common Sense PR – Tip: You Can’t Push a Rope. Although the post is more or less aimed at working in/with corporate environments, it’s certainly also true in the freelance writing business.
Eric points out that it may be the wrong time – I can’t count the number of potential clients who have contacted me and then disappeared. Some of them have probably found other writers, but for many, it simply wasn’t the right time to hire a writer. That’s fine with me, and sometimes those clients surface later, sometimes a lot …read more