By Lisa Tomey, https://prolificpulse.blog/

Getting started in the exciting and challenging field of freelancing can be difficult. What helps is to pay attention to the resources, of which there are many. An online search for books on freelance writing yields many choices. Many also find it helpful to enlist mentors to help hone their freelance skills. 

The field of freelance writing is full of possibilities. With this, it can be very difficult to define your niche within that field. What helped me was to attend a class specific to freelance writing. From that class I connected with others in the field and have gained more than one mentor. While a basic course of something such as Freelance 101 gave me a great base to work from, I found it helpful to connect with people who are writing in my areas of focus. 

I have found continued support with Triangle Association of Freelancers (TAF), which meets monthly in Raleigh, NC, but also has a list serve board, allowing for more people to take part. The mentoring that occurs in this group is priceless. There is not one post that gets ignored as freelancers share their successes and struggles. Support is tremendous for anybody in the group. This is the value of mentoring. When you get a group of people together with a common bond, there are certain to be people who can help each other at the simple price of time. Knowledge, skills and abilities come through as we help one another. One of my mentors, Don Vaughan, my Freelance 101 instructor, found that teaching the class was “one way to pay it forward.” He loves advising new writers and feels a “special pride when they make their first professional sale.” Many of us feel similarly when we help each other succeed.

One of my fellow writing friends, Alison, who has a background in news reporting and producing, has also written articles although she never thought of herself as a full-time freelancer. Much of her concentration has been on writing fiction (she has two novels under her belt) and being a freelancing video producer. With the benefits of mentoring from a freelance class, plus the support of fellow writers in TAF and otherwise, Alison has learned about the “unlimited potential of freelance writing.”It boosted her confidence, and she now pitches random magazines/publications. Taking the course helped to take the “mystery out of pitch writing,” while she stresses the need to be persistent and remember it’s a numbers game. Alison has gained the awareness that this is like “lifting the veil on something that seemed to be an elite club before. All these people try and fail and are not literary superheroes.”

Alison, working with mentors, re-pitched an idea to Redbook magazine and Redbook.com and they immediately accepted it. Since then she’s been published in Videoscope and Raleigh Magazine, and is finding other freelancing gigs. Her suggestion to other freelance writers is “just do it!”

Another writer who has taught writing classes, Chanah, also found that the freelancing course was a huge help. She learned several ways of coming up with ideas for articles. She also learned how to decide what magazines, online or digital, would be the best markets. Additionally, she discovered how to write a “solid query letter that was sure to get read.” While there is never a guarantee that a query will be accepted, the class learned about how to get their queries seen by the correct editor. 

I have found both the class and the TAF group to be helpful. Also, I have gained from the knowledge of professionals in the field thorough my association with other writers. I use social media often as I am a stay-at-home writer. I meet with others with a common writing focus and share shop talk. I have often found these connections in Meetup and other groups. The support is out there, as well as the opportunities to be mentored and to mentor others.It all works for the good of the fellowship of freelancing.

Lisa Tomey is a writer and artist. Her most recent publication is a poetry chapbook, Heart Sounds. Lisa resides in North Carolina.