You Want To Be a Full-Time Writer, But Do You Really Want To?
It’s not all sunshine and roses depending solely on writing
There is a narrative that being a full-time freelance writer will change your life. And that’s true for a very small portion of the country. For the rest of us, writing will always be a passion project.
Here’s the cold hard truth, from someone who has failed over and over again.
You won’t transform your life and make thousands a month on Medium.
Unless you are willing to sit down and write an article every hour of the day, every day of the month. That’s the thing that most people don’t realize about freelance writing.
When it comes down to it, you are basically working for minimum wage. The only difference is that you get to do it in the comfort of your own home.
But many times when I fall asleep with my laptop on my lap, I write into the night to meet a deadline, only to have the editor not publish it on time and me not get paid.
You’ll spend hours away from your family writing because raising kids when you are trying to write a 5000-word article is impossible. There have been times when I’ve tried to prepare dinner, make it to karate practice, and clean the house, all while trying to complete an article.
Only to fail and be defeated at 1:00 am, because I know I will not get the article in on time.
I have been fired from countless publications because I wasn’t submitting my work fast enough. I’d had to put the computer down to tend to my kids or do something, like dropping a parent off at the doctor's or getting the car repaired.
There are prosperity writers who believe their productive systems will turn you into a self-sufficient success story. But for those of us who aren’t urban hipsters with nest eggs and no kids, that isn’t the case.
We write when we can, every few months or a year we’ll get that one big writing payout and feel great.
But for the most part, you will never become a millionaire by freelance writing. If working in an office doesn’t fit, it is a great alternative, but the instability of the income is stressful beyond belief.
