Security Vs. Freedom

Freelance Writing: Security, Freedom; Both or Neither?

Freelance writing is one of those professions that is almost paradoxical by nature. I've been writing full time for a living since before finishing grad school, figuring out how to write for money on my own because at the time I was broke, sleeping on a friend's floor, and had both legs badly injured from a car accident, meaning I had to be able to work from his apartment. So at the beginning for me, writing was the only way I had to eat consistently, even if most meals were rice and Ramen noodles. But it also opened the way for my to go back to school, to spend a year and a half at a dream job in Austin, Texas, and get the ability to travel since all I need to work now is an Internet connection.

But I also pay insanely high taxes (in addition to having to pay them quarterly), have to compete with many other writers for work, and the pay isn't steady. I've had off months where I barely cleared a grand. Then again, there have been months where I closed in on $6,000 (but those months I also guarantee I was working 80 hour weeks). Online freelance writing assignments do allow writers to be able to make money online and have an unusual amount of freedom, but as with all things, there are caveats.

So define freedom. Can I get up at 6 a.m. and get my homemade fly fishing gear ready to hit the trout streams when they're biting? Absolutely. By the same token, however, if I spend the early morning hours to the early afternoon hours fishing, that freelance work that is waiting for me still needs to get done. So guess who will be staying up into the wee hours of the night (or even all the way into the "Witching Hour" of the next morning, if need be) to get that work done? Yup. The work has to get done.

There are tricks to this, and experience helps. If you want the ultimate example of a "time management" coach (although he would hate that term) then look up Timothy Ferriss's book: The 4 Hour Work Week for a fantastic resource that can help guide you. The tricks and tactics here transfer to the freelance writing life style easily.

There is freedom in that you can move around. I have traveling all through my blood, as my huge love of great travel narratives can attest to. So having friends across the country, I can travel and visit all the great friends I've met over the years, finding free Wi-fi or spending time in coffee shops getting all the writing work done to get paid. While there isn't a lot of physical stress from the freelance writing job, there is a lot of mental stress.

But can I go hike the Appalachian Trail over the summer? No. Not unless I have no steady work and have enough money to pay all my bills automatically AND still have money for water, food, camping equipment, emergency medical bills, etc. So there are limits. Sometimes being a freelance writer feels like freedom at it's best. Sometimes it feels like I'm a dog on a very long leash.

In addition, there is a big pay difference between what you want to write about and what pays the bills. There are great places to write for money online, and an article like this one on my favorite post apocalyptic movies has gotten to the point where it pays me about $8-9 a month passive income. So up front it was only worth $5, but things have gone the right way so that article now makes me about $100 a year and will continue to do so as long as that article ranks well in Google for a lot of search terms. There is where you find the potential for complete freedom that most would be writers dream about: it's in learning how to make passive online income. But most the time I write "work for hire" articles for others, because that pays a lot more and is guaranteed pay, something that is important.

It's possible, but it's hard, and it takes a whole lot of time to figure out. The way I try to explain the freedom of freelance writing is that you have more freedom than ever within the frame work of a job, but you are in some ways MORE restrained than ever to constantly hammering out the work, and to always being within quick reach of the technology and online jagguernaut.

And so here I am again, trying to work out the balance of money now with trying to make enough passive income to have the full and true freedom of what I want. So I listed to "The 4 Hour Work Week" again, keep hammering on articles and other writing jobs, and go back to figuring out affiliate sales and Adsense.

Freelance writing can be a great blanket of security as a part time income for someone who has a steady full time job, but as a full time job when you have a lot of bills, it's a fight.