27 Jun 10 Freelance Writing and Writing Experience

Do you need to have some writing experience before you start your freelance writing career? The answer is yes and no. Yes because you cannot get any client – at least not the serious ones – if you do not have any prior experience, and no because you cannot have experience without getting to work for some clients. It indeed is a hen and an egg problem, but there is a way out of this situation.

How to gain writing experience before even getting a client

Do you really think you do not have any writing experience? You are wrong in thinking so; what about your term papers and assignments that you submitted in your school and college? Yes, those were writings as well – though not professional, may be not even grammatically correct, nevertheless they gave you some experience.

But, when starting as a freelance writer we are not concerned about just any writing. We are, in fact, concerned about proper experience, which one can get only when one writes professionally, which brings us to the original question of how to get writing experience as professional without having any client. The following points will help you answer that.

Start your own blog and post articles on it. Make sure each article is at least 500 words long.
Write articles for social communities and motivate your friends to read and give feedback to you. This will be a valuable asset which you can use to show your clients to get work.
Write articles for free. This will help you build portfolio — this may be an option, but I will not suggest putting this into effect unless you have exhausted all the available options.
Write for charity website. They like contributors.

There are many ways to build your portfolio and have some writing experience. The question is are you will to find an avenue and pursue it to the end?

Tags: blog, Charity Website, Egg Problem, Feedback, Freelance Writer, Freelance Writing Career, Friends, Portfolio, Proper Experience, Social Communities, Term papers

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09 Jan 10 Make Twitter Work For You

Twitter is essentially the biggest thing on the internet right now. The ability for any person to have abstract conversations and musings with one another has really caught fire. But have you thought about the ways that Twitter could help you professionally? Twitter is actually a really good way to do market research, and even promote yourself or your company. Because Twitter is so widely used you can reach, and also receive feedback from a global community, if you know what to do.

So obviously the first step is to create a professional Twitter page. Whether for your business, or personal business ventures, make sure that you update often. The quickest way to be forgotten is to tweet only once every few days. You have to keep your Twitter page active, usually with multiple tweets per day, so that there is always more content for an interested party to keep tabs on.

Use Twitter search to narrow down people, or other businesses that might be interested in finding your Twitter page. Try and contact them, either through mention on your Twitter account or via personal message to let them know about you. This way you can gain more and more followers. Your efforts won’t be very successful if you don’t have very many followers accessing your tweets.

Remember to take care of your followers as you gain them as well. Respond to them, mention them, etc. Make them involved, as they will become interested, and also mention you in their tweets, and that’s free advertising. Keeping your followers interested is key to building the Twitter page, and increasing your effectiveness.

Finally use Twitter’s search function to see how many mentions you are getting on other pages throughout the site. This is a good way to keep up on how successful your efforts have been. Also you’ll be able to keep track of what you should change to accommodate the greater interest. Twitter feedback is valuable, so take full advantage of the ability to see accurate feedback so quickly.

Tags: Business Ventures, Conversations, Feedback, Few Days, Followers, Free Advertising, Global Community, Interested Party, Market Research, Mentions, Musings, Personal Business, Personal Message, Search Function, Tabs, Tweets, Twitter

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21 Oct 09 Overcoming The Fear Of Writing Rejection

Overcoming the fear is essential to any writer. You just can’t work hard and be successful if you have the fear, because nothing you do will measure up to your anxieties. OF course the fear I’m referring to is how your work will be received. Many people are afraid to have other people read their writing because they can’t face rejection. But if you choose to be a writer, that is an anxiety that you really can’t afford to have. Otherwise you’d have a hard time making a living out of writing projects created only for yourself.

You have to realize that in most cases the fear, or anxiety that you feel could just be a fear of the unknown. You haven’t put yourself out there and been rejected, so you don’t know how it feels. Having that unknown component can make rejection seem worse than it actually becomes.

Try to combat this by writing within your strengths at first. You’ll be more likely to produce content that you actually like by writing on subjects you know about first hand, or are in general very knowledgeable about. Plus you’ll be able to write more effectively concerning information you’re already comfortable with. Don’t push yourself outside your comfort zone in the beginning.

Get all the creative criticism that you can find, and take all of it into account. This is a good step to help you really put yourself out there. Try starting small, with friends or family. Or even if that seems to embarrassing at first, try a writer’s website, where you can retain your anonymity, but still receive feedback. This way nobody knows the writing is yours, or even who you are, and you can get the feedback you need to take into account, to grow as a writer.

From there, when you feel you’ve fine tuned enough, it’s time to take a deep breath and submit that first piece. Whether it’s a story, or an article, etc. The only way that you can get past your fear, is to jump headfirst into submitting your content. Remember that you’re going to get rejected, it’s a fact. Even the greats have gotten a huge portion of their work rejected in the past. You’ll be no different. Rejection is a huge part of the job, just learn to deal with being rejected, and move on.

Most importantly, don’t let rejection stop you. Being a successful writer is more about how you deal with rejection than anything else. So don’t let your fear stop you, because it’s hard to become a writer if you never put your ideas out there.

Tags: Anonymity, Anxieties, Anxiety, Comfort Zone, Conten, Creative Criticism, Deep Breath, Face, Fear Of The Unknown, Feedback, Hard Time, Many People, Overcoming Fear, Rejection

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09 Jan 10 Make Twitter Work For You

21 Oct 09 Overcoming The Fear Of Writing Rejection

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