Beyond Words

Writing. It seems that you either have a tightly focused writing plan or you’re all over the place. At least in my opinion. I am all over the place with my professional and personal writing. I spent yesterday marketing myself to a potential gig that would have me writing for 18+ year old males! The challenge, for me, was to sell myself, an about-to-be 57 year old single woman and grandmother of 2. I am on round 2 of the interview, so I must be doing something right.

I can’t say much about my personal writing because it’s nonexistent at the moment. Between a suddenly active social calendar, my part time job and my client work I’m not using enough discipline to add in personal writing. I am however getting some work done with my social media sites and my blogs are slowly picking back up. The goal is to bring in bigger paying gigs and stop sweating over the small stuff!

One of the things I think freelance writers need to do is define their niche. It makes the search process a little simpler if you know what markets to target. The writer who specializes in medical writing can easily define where to look and what kinds of articles she can turn out competently. I’m less clear on what my defined market is. Right now I’m writing a good bit on online dating for the over 50 crowd and developing that not only for ThirdAge.com but for my own blog. Once you’re in the habit and thought-pattern of a particular topic I think it’s easier to write multiple articles on the subject.  Right now I see an ever-constant need for information and support about online dating for older people.

A Woman’s Page is my midlife focused blog and as of this week I’m now featured on Alltop’s Midlife page. I’d almost forgotten putting in my request for inclusion, so the “welcome, you’re one of us” email came as a very pleasant surprise. Alltop is a blog aggregate-you can create your own  page with all your favorite blogs and get instant gratification as new posts come out. It’s a great place to see and be seen.

It can be challenging to write for clients, especially as a ghostwriter, because you don’t get that immediate gratification of seeing your work in person. I think that’s why so many freelance writers blog; we want to speak our minds about topics that are important to us. And, we want that intangible reward of seeing our words in print-even if it’s only for our closest 10 friends. Not in a boastful way, it’s satisfying to see a well-laid out blog post, to see our words dressed in their Sunday best on a page for the whole world to see. I feel a real sense of satisfaction when I’ve done a good blog post. And, I’m excited about giving others the chance to engage with me by blogging. So, thank you Alltop!

The path for a freelance writer can be uneven, it’s often 3 steps forward and 1 step back. The little things sustain us, the ‘nice job’ or request for even more work from a new client. And, the contentment of meeting a deadline with clear, well-written material….and our name discreetly tucked in at the bottom.

Walker J. Thornton, Freelance Writer