My Road to Becoming a Freelance Writer, Part 1

I don't remember ever not being a writer. I started out writing screenplays at a very young age, then turned my efforts toward fiction. My dream for the last 25 years has been to be able to support myself in some way so that I could spend time writing, until I could support myself by writing.

Becoming a freelance writer never occurred to me.

I spent several years looking for some way to make money at home so that I could write. I've been an Ebay seller, had a small cleaning business and tried out various sales companies. In the end, I always went back to working for a paycheck. My primary concern was supporting my kids, especially after my husband and I split in 2008.

When I became a single Mom, I was pretty sure that my chances of being able to work from home in any capacity were pretty slim. Most WAHM websites and work at home opportunities for Moms are geared toward women who have a husband's income to help pay the bills and keep bread on the table while they get established. The only alternative was to build up a pretty good nest egg to live on before leaving the work world for the work at home world.

Any single Mom will testify to how hard that is to accomplish.

In 2010, I was working seventy to eighty hours a week, including a commute that was 100 miles each way. I was a restaurant manager and fairly good at my job, but I hated it. I hated being away from my kids so many hours a week. I hated being an hour and a half away if an emergency came up. I hated that I had to work nights most of the time, so I would often go days without spending a single full hour with my kids. I spent a lot of time sitting in imaginary sackcloth and ashes because I felt like a failure as a mother.

I was absolutely desperate to change the situation but clueless how to do it. I prayed constantly and spent an awful lot of time online, researching all manner of work at home opportunities.  I looked at working as a homebased call center operator. I looked at becoming a virtual assistant. I was willing to do almost anything and I was willing to make a lot less money. I just wanted to be at home so that I could be a "real" Mom and so that I could get back to writing.

It's funny, but I don't remember where I happened across the possibility of becoming a freelance writer. My memory sucks (in fact, I have ADD, which, when combined with middle age and five kids, makes me nearly disabled) but I can usually recall truly important moments. Life-changing moments are usually pretty easy for me to remember. This one just dropped into the ether.

However, I did have that moment. I did accidentally run across the idea that freelance writing, online content writing, was an actual possibility.

From that moment, whenever it was, my horizon started looking suspiciously good.

Fear, Faith and The Freelance Writer

One year and one week ago, I drove home from my last day as an employed person. It was New Year's Day, 5am.


I had been thinking about this day for years.


I had been planning it for months.


That morning, I was exhilarated, excited, nervous and somewhat disbelieving. It felt a lot like I imagine bungee jumping would feel, if a clodhopping, accident-prone and phobia-riddled person such as myself would ever do such a thing. A little scary, a little fun, with the moderate security of knowing there was a cord wrapped around my ankle and yet the underlying fear that I would hit the water face first with all the grace of a cow falling out of a tree.


Truthfully, it never occurred to me that in less than six months, I would be thriving as a freelance writer. I wouldn't have even considered the idea that in less than a year, I would be making more money than I ever had working seventy hours a week. However, that's exactly what happened.


Very early on, I knew that if I could do this, so could many other women. As hokey as it may sound, I also knew that helping them do it would make me very, very happy.


Which brings us to where we are right now....me hoping you'll continue to read and you hoping I'll write something that will work for you.


Maybe you've always been a writer, but never professionally. I was born writing, but never wrote professionally before I made the leap.


Maybe you have some other dream you want to pursue, but you need a way to make money so that you can pursue it. My dream was to get back to writing and to be at home with my children, even though I was a single mom.


If I can do this, with no spouse's paycheck to fall back on, no writing credentials to get my foot in the door and no insider contacts, then so can you.


It takes planning, it takes work and it takes an awful lot of faith. A little help wouldn't hurt; perhaps some advice from someone who has done it. Some step-by-step instruction that actually gets you moving in the right direction. A whole lot of encouragement.


I can do that. You can do this.


It'll be great.


By the way, if you've been thinking about bungee jumping, do it now, while you still have health insurance. It may be a while before you can afford it again.