New Updates from the Home Office

Ain’t Kansas City a pretty city? I could stare at that view all night!

OK, so where to I begin? This website has been more or less abandoned for close to a year, which is really bad of me. But as we all can attest, this has been a chaotic year. For me, it’s just been a lot of life changes. Some seriously big, seriously good changes!

On the personal front, I’m officially settled and happy in Kansas City! I’ve been making friends—and a boyfriend. A very sweet, very geeky boyfriend who gets a whole lot of my time and provides me with motivation in reading, writing, hobbies and so much more. We’ve managed to pull through the pandemic well, and we’re happily vaccinated, too!

There is also my shiny new piano, which I’m trying very hard not to neglect. I’m pleased to report that I almost think maybe I’m a pianist now! I can (sort of) play some things, anyway. Then we’ve got powerlifting, reading, my own personal writings, and a zillion other things that could probably each make a blog post in and of themselves.

But this is a career-focused website, right? And that’s the main thrust of this post. Some of the biggest changes of the past year have been changes within my career. Seriously big, seriously good changes.

So let’s cut straight to the chase. This year, I’m set to make well over $100,000 as a freelance writer. More than that, I’m making this money working (mostly) part time—although getting here took a lot of work and months’ worth of 16-hour workdays. I’m not saying that to pat myself on the back, but to show you that it is possible.

And I’m going to show you how I did it.

Now I can practically hear some of you in the back rolling your eyes because let’s face it: Those “I make a living freelancing and you can, too!” sites are a dime a dozen. Some of them are even pretty scammy. “I make a living freelancing and you can, too. I’ll show you how…for a fee.”

Nope. Nope, nope, nope—that’s not what this is about. Rather, I’m planning a series of blog posts showing you how I did it, but dispensing with the dime-a-dozen style posts in the vein of “how to write a pitch” or “where to find gigs.”

Don’t get me wrong. I definitely will be sharing my advice for writing pitches and finding gigs. Confused yet? Keep reading.

What I’m not going to do is show you exactly how to structure a pitch or a query letter because there are plenty of examples of this online, and most of them work quite well. The world doesn’t need more cookie-cutter posts identical to the last thousand published.

What I will do is provide advice based on my own experience. For instance, things like structure and format don’t matter quite so much. So long as you’re in the ballpark on these two things, the more important considerations are brevity and writing the pitch like you’re someone who knows exactly what you’re doing despite a looming case of impostor syndrome.

What I’m not going to do is tell you to search on Indeed or LinkedIn for gigs. Everybody knows this advice. There are millions of blog posts out there already saying this exact thing. What I will do is give you some ideas for places you might not have thought to check over the course of your own gig hunt.

I’m also going to talk a bit about mentality because the truth is, being a freelancer—not just a freelance writer in particular, but in any line of work—takes a certain kind of mentality. Not everybody has it, and that’s OK. There needs to be a willingness to roll with the punches because freelancing throws quite a few of them your way. You’ll also need to be prepared to wear a lot of hats. At the end of the day, you’re not just a freelance writer. You’re also your own administrative, marketing, human resources, payroll, legal, and accounting departments. But more on all of that later. For now, suffice to say that now that I’m more or less settled into my new life, there will be some changes around here. Stay tuned!