1) A way to make money while you’re trying to hit it big. That’s the way a lot of people choose to see it whether it’s commercial writing, commercial art, or doing tedious copypasta database programming for Meglocorp Inc. Usually, people get into freelance fields because they have entertained the idea of being the next Hemingway, the next Rembrandt, or publishing the next World of Warcraft. It’s an admirable dream, and it’s not as far away from coming true as you feel deep down. It’s also not as close as you keep telling yourself it is every day.

A bit of encouragement is in order though. You can do what you want and get paid without Goin’ Out West. My friend just sold off his third screenplay and made six figures off of it. He’s just a delta-accented punk who put his nose to the grindstone and kept working at it for years. He doesn’t even see himself as anything special. The key, though, is that he put his head down and hands up–kept fighting. It worked for him in just a few short years.

2) The Valley of Broken Dreams (TM) (C) (XYZZY). This is where a startling majority of freelancers end up. I sometimes like to think of the commercial art fields as the place where dreams go to die. You always wanted to be a novelist or a painter, but you get caught up in the money and “just surviving”. Let me tell you: the years can go by very fast when you’ll start on that novel tomorrow.

I settled for survival until I had a wake-up call which told me that I don’t want to be limited. I’ve got something to say, and I’m going to make sure it gets crammed down the throat of as many English-speakers as possible whether they like it or not.

So, here’s some extracurricular activities which will both boost your freelance career as well as your dream career:

Start Small and Build Up

It’s possible to become a card-punching drone as a freelancer as well. It’s where you give up your dream and your freedom in exchange for a sum of money. It’s a desk job you don’t have to drive to. However, you’re still chained to that desk. The following is what I do to break away from those chains. I’m taking risks, moving forward, grabbing at the prize.

When I’m not writing for this blog, numerous other blogs, and other writing “jobs” I’ve accumulated, I’m writing short stories and sending them off for publication. That’s the key for any writer. I think Dave and Bill do something like that to move their career forward. Then again, I also believe that they spend a good portion of their time wearing onions on their belt (because it was the fashion of the time) and telling me to get a haircut, get a job, and get off their respective lawns. Anyway, $50 an hour for 40 hours a week is decent money, but it’s chump change compared to the revenue generated by a good novel or screenplay. How do you get from here to there? Start small.

You’ll find that writing a publishable short story is a far cry from starting small, but at least it’s smaller than a publishable novel. The fact is that you can pump out a 2000 word short story, edit it, and send it off to publishers much faster than a novel. Also, getting published in even a small journal is nothing to sneeze at. It’s called a publishing credit. You get one, and you can apply it to the next story you send out. The good thing is that you never lose the credit. You can publish your second story on the back of the first you published–the third on the first and second. It keeps building up into a successful career just like getting jobs on oDesk builds up your commercial career. After you have 15, you’ve probably won an award and have some considerable weight. You could easily publish a book of short stories. That’s one book credit. See where it’s going?

These journals also accept artwork and photography, so if you’re not a writer, there’s still a place for you to publish your work. If you’re a programmer, well… check out 2600 Magazine. I think that’d be an interesting choice for your field.

By submitting your work to extra journals, you are also boosting your commercial career. You can use these credits as currency when applying to jobs on oDesk. All you have to say is “Hey, you need me because I’ve been published in (insert prestigious magazines here).” Savvy?

Open Source Projects

This is the part where Dave and I have a conversation like this video. Yes, I’m like the guy with glasses and the backpack.

There’s a lot of opportunities in Open Source projects. You’ll work for free (or cheap), but you will gain massive exposure if you play it right. You will be able to point to a piece of software, graphics in software, or a manual and say that you either had a hand in its creation or created it yourself while thousands of people use it every day. That’s impressive on a resume.

One great place to check for Open Source projects you can work on is SourceForge. It’s a website dedicated to Open Source projects, and you can contact the developers of those projects to offer your services. Keep in mind that most of the people on this website are developing software in their free time to be released at no cost to the user, so you won’t find too many who are willing to pay for art, writing, or programming. That’s just the way it is. However, you can use this opportunity to build your resume with some on-topic examples.

Fin

That’s the idea of it. Instead of saying you’ll do this tomorrow, check it out now and get involved. If you’re a writer, sit down right now and write a short story. Find an Open Source project to get involved in. Develop yourself.

Or say you’ll do it tomorrow/the day after/next week/when you’re 80. That actually makes it easier for more motivated people to succeed.

What could be better than earning money while you develop your skills?

Unfortunately, there’s a flock of novice wannabes jumping in who can’t write well at all. They think commercial writing is a home business venture anyone with a computer and modem can do. If this describes your circumstances, I can assure you that you will make almost no money and become frustrated. But all of us start out flailing about a bit. Here’s how even the most basic beginner can develop into a decent, competent writer.

Write.

Writers write. That’s the old aphorism, but it’s still as true as ever. Pretend writers talk about writing, read about writing and maybe even dream about writing. But real writers write.

The difference is the one between planning a garden and planting (and caring for) an actual garden. Things happen outside of our wishes and beyond our control. The doing teaches what it means for me as an individual to be a writer. Anyone can sit and dream. I’m lazy, I understand. But it’s the act of writing, of getting your thoughts on paper, revising and rewording and shaping a piece so that it approximates whatever is happening in your head– that process can’t be replaced or skipped. Writers write.

If you aren’t yet good enough to write for money, write for free. There are sites begging for free content. Article mills and pay-per-click sites will take your practice prose while your writing muscles are developing. Write for your church or community newsletter. Write a blog. Learn the craft and learn something about yourself. The only thing you will know for certain before you write regularly is that writing regularly won’t be how you imagine it.

Read.

Any writer worth her salt reads. Because decent writers are readers. Read anything that appeals to you. The classics are great, but any book that transports you out of yourself is fine.

Reading largely trains us subconsciously. The patterns of good prose, the meter and rhythms of it- reading works a subtle magic in our heads. Sometimes you can see it, mostly not. I see it in myself after watching Shakespeare. I get so immersed that for hours afterward, I want to talk in that unique Shakespearian lilt. “Forsooth, he sayeth what no mortal kens.”

I was reading “The God of Small Things” (a book I didn’t actually like), and in a scene describing the monsoon season in India, the author wrote, “Insects appeared in the night like small ideas.” What a great image. I wish I wrote that well.

If you want to make a formal exercise of this, find an author who’s style you really like– fiction, non-fiction, web copy, whatever– and type out a good chunk. Literally copy word for word, space for space and so on. You will find this mechanical imitation gets the flow of the work into fingers, eyes and mind. It seems strange, but mimicry actually changes us a bit.

Learn.

When I said I was lazy, I wasn’t kidding. Sometimes the best thing for me is to have deadlines and expectations to meet. A little push to get me started on a much bigger climb. A climb to my next plateau and some training to get me in shape. This is the value of formal education.

For beginners, there are plenty of free or cheap ways to improve. Beginners have the advantage of remarkably fast gains and dramatic advancement. I’d start with an online writers’ group because most are convenient and reasonably priced. I can recommend Writers’ Village University. The upside of paying for courses is that you get direct feedback about your writing. The honest critiques are priceless for new writers.

If self-study appeals to you, here is a list of free resources on the web:

• News University- Free with registration, loads of free courses directed at journalists in general.
• Steve Barne’s Online Writing Class- Free downloadable 9 week writing course.
• Writing.com- a group participation course for beginners/intermediate writers
• Free-ed- This site has a great technical writing course as well as college level English composition.

Another option is your local community college. Call and ask anyone in the English department to make suggestions. This route also has the advantage personalized critiques and specific, directed help. Writing workshops are not, in my opinion, a good choice until someone is already a fair writer. The material they cover is too advanced.

How will I know when I’m competent?

You will know because buyers will tell you. They will tell you they love your work, and they want to rehire and then rehire you again. You will know because your bank account will tell you. You will know because you won’t worry when someone asks for a sample, and finally, you will know because you won’t even bother to read ads that have a one-digit number as the per article budget.

Of course, paying what’s due and going about my way couldn’t be that easy. With anything established by a government–whether local or broad–you can expect long lines, an inability to assist you when you get to the end of the line, and a long wait afterwards while they decide what to do with you. I didn’t get to pay the fees, and I was also blocked from checking out further books until some arbitrary date when they think they will be done “reviewing my case.”

“Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” — Oscar Wilde

Luckily (or tragically), I was on foot that day and had already walked a good distance to get there, so I wasn’t about to be thwarted so easily. Went on upstairs and read what I came there to find. However, I also wanted to bring some things home with me. There’s a bookstore in this library where they sell off all of the books they have taken out of circulation due to damage, lack of interest, or a myriad of other reasons. The prices were incredible, and I found several books that related to writing as well as programming, art, web design, and more.

• Poet’s Market, 2004 – $3 (outdated, but the long-standing, credible venues will still be in there–it was for a friend anyway)
• The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law – $1
• Grisham’s The Firm (hardback), $3
• Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs, $3

A total of $10 for four books. All in next-to-perfect condition. The AP Stylebook was an especially good find for me, but I saw tons of books on everything from C#/.NET to learning how to use Corel and Adobe Photoshop. This experienced opened my eyes. You can get your hands on very important career-enhancing material for a minimal cost!

If your local library has a free or low-cost book store, I would recommend checking it out frequently. While some of the books might be two or three years old, the knowledge is still useful if it’s a good book in the first place. Even for programmers, who work in a constantly changing and cutting-edge field, you can pick up one of these cheap how-to books to get started, and you can supplement your knowledge later by learning off of the web.

Don’t forget about the rest of the books in the library, though. You can check out a book for a while, absorb it, and not have to pay anything for it. The only downside to that method is that you won’t have it on your desk for reference at any point, and for certain topics, you need that.

As a freelancer, you need to keep moving forward in your skills. More knowledge is equal to more money. Even for physical laborers, if you know how to lay a brick wall better than your competition, you’ll receive more work. If you can write in a variety of styles, more buyers will want to continue their working relationship with you.

An easy way to do that is to read. Find all of the books that relate to your field, and read them. Even if you remember only a couple things from a book, you will find that to be useful later on down the road. If you read several books, you’ll be adding a few things from each and create an impressive knowledge base for yourself. It’s not cost-prohibitive, and you’ll earn far much more in return.