Profession of Freelance Writer and Its Perspectives - Essay Example

Wendy Strain: Profile of a When I first entered an English room, I thought this was just aclass I would need to take to get my degree. However, after talking with professional writer Wendy Strain, I now realize that writing has very wide applications in the real world. I first met Wendy Strain through a shared friend on Facebook. She made interesting political comments and sometimes got into not-quite-friendly debates with other friends about the issues. We didnt really have too much direct contact until I needed to find someone with an interesting career. Seeing her profession was freelance writer made me curious about just what such a career might entail. I think I envisioned someone barely making ends meet as they sat at a desk in a dark basement trying to type out Stephen King-like novels. After a few email queries back and forth, I was able to conduct an interview with Ms. Strain via Skype. What she had to say about being a freelance writer completely changed my attitude about what writing is and its usefulness in the real world of business. "Being a freelance writer isnt at all like being the starving artist in the garrett," Ms. Strain said when I mentioned my impressions to her. She was laughing, so I didnt worry that Id offended her. In fact, her easy-going attitude made it very easy to ask questions I might not have asked someone who was more uptight. After we got done laughing, Ms. Strain explained that freelance writers are master jugglers who must change costumes, objects and the numbers of objects flying at a moments notice. Instead of just sitting around dreaming up the next Great American novel, she explained that freelance writers like herself are usually kept very busy by the corporate world writing things like white papers, promotional video scripts, product descriptions, sales materials, technical manuals, case studies, web pages and internal business-related documents like business plans and project proposals. Ms. Strain also writes creatively, though, so she offers other writers services like ghostwriting, editing, reviews and proofreading. The types of written materials she produces can be very different from one assignment to the next not just because the type of document shes writing is different, but also because the audience or the purpose might be different which means the tone of voice and types of proof she needs to use will change. When I asked Ms. Strain who she wrote for, her quickest answer was to say "anyone who will pay me!" But then she went on to explain that most of her clients were businesses or government and most of the work they send her way is related to the natural flow of business. "I am currently working on a business plan for an innovative start-up company looking for a little direction, a marketing campaign for a small town trying to drive tourism, an online retailer needing product descriptions for their website, editing a book for a writer colleague and ghostwriting a novel for another client," she said to give me an idea of what kind of work she does and what kinds of clients she has. It wasnt until I asked her what her typical day looks like that I found out shes also a writing instructor at her local university, a job she says she took both because she loves to encourage other people to write and because it gave her a steady paycheck that made home loan officers like her better. "Its hard to buy a house when you dont have an employer you can point to and a base income the loan officer can work with," she said. She also added that the concept of the starving writer was only a myth. "Im sure there are some writers out there who have bought into this myth and are actually struggling," she said, "but when you let go of the myth and start looking at it as a legitimate business, the hungry days end and you can make a pretty nice living off of your writing." Thats when it hit me that Ms. Strain not only had an unusual career, but that she was also an entrepreneur. She said she entered her career field as a journalist and had intended to work at newspapers for most of her adult life. "I really enjoyed the work, I loved seeing that I could have an impact on my community and it was great to be able to work with so many interesting people all the time," she said. Unfortunately, the size of her newspaper required huge demands of her time causing her to "burn out" at about the same time that newspapers were being replaced by internet sources. Book publishing has always been a difficult process with little guarantee of success, she said, so she started exploring her other options. "I kind of fell into freelancing by accident," she said. "I needed to start making money now, but at that point, I couldnt handle the thought of working in a cubicle somewhere. Besides, waiting the two weeks to a month until the first paycheck came in was not going to work." She started making some phone calls to friends she had made while working as a newspaper writer and the work, and the checks, started coming in almost immediately. Ms. Strain said there are many things that she loves about her career and her business. Like working with the newspaper, she says she has the opportunity to meet a lot of very interesting people and some of the things she writes can have a great deal of impact - depending on what it is. In addition, she always has the flexibility to say she doesnt want to work on a project or to schedule her day in a way that allows her to fit in interviews or work with students. She enjoys creating her websites - wendystrain.com and writeonwendy.com - but admits she sometimes struggles to maintain her own business when she gets very busy working on other peoples. Most of all, she said her job is constantly challenging her to learn new things, explore new ways of communicating ideas and still gives her the time to play as if she were retired. Read More