Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post written by Sally Keys, a freelance writer in the fields of business and finance.
In my decade as first a writer and then a content manager, I have seen many people who think they can be writers. They love the idea of calling themselves a writer, bigging themselves up, and working from home. Many are stay-at-home parents, English literature students, and the long-term unemployed looking for a quick buck.
However, there are several aspects which mark out a good writer from a bad one, and it’s not all down to skill. A large part is actually down to attitude and mentality. If you have what it takes to survive as a freelance writer, then you need both of these.
The Writer’s Work Life
Most newbie writers underestimate the amount of work that goes into writing and the diversity of the writing jobs they must complete. They also fail to anticipate the time pressure put on many writers to get work done.
This is not just in terms of deadlines but also the amount of work necessary to make an decent living from writing. In some cases, this can mean pumping out multiple 400-word articles in an hour, including research and editing time.
The biggest challenge of for those who write from home is discipline. This means setting aside time and distractions, being well organized, and keeping to a strict schedule to bring the work in on time and on quality.
On the plus side, if you have that discipline, you will have the flexibility to work half days, to change from day-to-day when you work and how you work. As you write, you will gain more knowledge and more experience in each type of writing, and you will naturally speed up.
This brings in another con to consider: complacency. Shortcuts, cheats, copying, and accidentally writing the same thing again and again are common errors alongside not reading job briefs properly and being bland.
The Work-From-Home Lifestyle
Most online writers today work from home. This can be in a designated office, a dining room, a bedroom, or, like Roald Dahl, a shed at the bottom of the garden. As noted above, working from home has its own distractions. Bosses will be on chat and email instead of in your face, as will colleagues, but you can tune them out more easily.
However, now you have a TV in the house, as well as a phone, Internet access, a fridge, and maybe a noisy family. Working from home can also be lonely, as it’s difficult to build new professional relationships and you won’t have colleagues to go out with.
Despite these drawbacks, the drawbacks of writing from home are offset by the many benefits: you can work in comfort, wear what you want, take the kids to school, and go out for lunch without a time limit.