Progress as a Freelance Writer: Slow and Steady is just fine
The progress you make as a freelance writer is very important. This is particularly true if you are attempting to turn this into your full-time career. Some want to rush ahead and make everything happen at the same time. Is this the best idea? While it is important to make forward progress the last thing you want to do is rush.
Personally, I believe that slow and steady is the best way to build a freelance writing career. When you progress slowly you have the chance to see what is going on around you, while realizing what you need to do to keep the momentum. Those who try to speed through the process often times look back and wonder what happened.
Of course, I am not advocating that you slow yourself down just to do it. In other words, if you are landing new gigs at a high rate of speed you should continue doing this as long as you are comfortable.
Although I believe that slow and steady is a good thing, you may feel differently. The one thing to remember is that every freelance writer is unique. You may move faster or slower than somebody else; there is nothing wrong with this. It is best to do whatever will make you comfortable.
In short, I want this post to be a reminder that becoming a successful freelance writer does not happen over night. You have to put in a lot of work, and slowly build your career over the period of many months/years. If you slowly and steadily move forward you will eventually reach all your goals.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Going at your own pace is a good idea. When i finally made the jump to full-time freelancing, I used a shotgun approach with queries and applications for jobs and soon found myself with three assignments and felt a bit overwhelmed.
I had to slow down and stop querying and focused on finishing the writing projects to the best of my ability. Now, I am back to the query process and I am feeling more comfortable with the idea that I can get work when needed.
Another benefit to a slow and steady approach is discovering what type of writing suits you and how long you take to complete projects. As you note, this is an individual thing and each of us has to discover what kind of freelance writer we are going to be. One size does not fit all in the freelance game.