Freelance Writing: Five Fatal Habits to Avoid

Are you new to freelance writing? If your career’s not booming, you’ve developed bad habits: there are more writing jobs around than writers willing to accept them. Buyers of writing are desperate for competent writers.

In this article, we’ll look at five fatal habits which new writers (and some established writers) develop. They’re easy enough to cure, once you know what they are.

1. You Wait to Write Until You Have Writing Jobs

Writers write. The most common fatal habit of freelance writers is waiting until you have a writing job before you write.

This is like an athlete staying in bed until there’s a sports event in which he intends to compete. Creativity doesn’t arrive on demand, it arrives when you regularly call on it; it’s a flow.

I write every day, and so do all writers who have more clients and writing jobs than they can handle. This is because writing is a muscle. If you don’t use it, it atrophies. When you do use it, you find new ways to use it. Writing more is much more fun than being niggardly with the amount of writing you do — and you never have to wonder where your next writing job is coming from.

So… write!

2. You Fail to Contact Clients and Prospects to Follow up

People get busy. When you send a query, follow up. When you’ve completed a writing job for a client, get in touch within a month and propose a project.

Please communicate: it’s what you do.

3. (Established Writers) You Write Without a Retainer

Please don’t do this. It’s a very bad habit. It can be fatal, because not only do you leave yourself fair game for unscrupulous slow-paying clients, you also run the risk of harming your creative flow. (Anger kills creativity.)

If your Terms of Service state that you require a retainer before you start writing, wait until the money’s in your bank account. No exceptions.

4. (New Writers) You Worry About Whether You’ve Been Paid “Enough”

If you’re a new writer, completing jobs is more important than how much you’re paid. As a new writer, you have no standards of comparison. You’re new to writing, so expect to spend some time paying your dues. Worrying about whether you’re being paid enough money for a writing job is a fatal habit to fall into.

Get experience in writing and getting paid. You’ll know soon enough when you’re worth more money. In the meantime — write!

5. You Don’t Write Enough to Write Well

Are you sensing a theme here? Here’s something I’ve found of be true of every writer I’ve known: writing problems are solved by writing. All of them, without exception.

In order to write well, you have to write enough. If you write 2000 words and the article commission is for 800 words, there’s a good chance that 800 of those 2000 words will be better than if you just wrote 800 words.

Word counting aside, writing is a muscle, and creativity is a flow. If you’re not writing enough, you’re not building your muscles, and you’ve choked off your creativity.

So there you have it — avoid these five freelance writing fatal habits, and watch your writing career blossom.

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