In part one of this article series, we talked about how stamina is one of the most important qualities of a successful writer. Even if you are just sitting in front of your laptop and working your fingers to type your ideas, you need to physically command yourself to be in top writing form when you need to.
Now that we’ve talked about that let us go on to the second trait that Rebecca Garland mentioned in her article.
TRAIT # 2 – IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL FREELANCE WRITER
The second trait that was mentioned is FLEXIBILITY.
She stated that this career changes over time. You need to be able to ride all those changes and be ready to adapt if you have to.
I started with just my writing skills but now I can manage websites, publish articles, research data and upload graphs. I still have a lot of things to learn and I need to continue adding to my skills so that I have something new to offer clients. If you want to grow in this field, you need to grow your skills as well.
I can also say that this flexibility includes the type of niches that you will choose to write about. Freelance writing, especially online, is quite a competitive career to be in. You have to be flexible enough to be able to write about any niche – regardless if you believe in it or not. It’s not really a matter of how knowledgeable you are about it because you can always do your research.
There was this time when I had to write about hypnosis – which personally, I find to be quite absurd (no offense to those who have been helped by it). But I was pretty new and I wanted to grow my portfolio so I still took the job. That was a bit tough to accomplish – writing a piece that would convince others to believe in a topic when you don’t even believe in it yourself. But I did it anyway and just focused on the facts and did a lot of research about it. These are the times when your talent will really come into play.
BONUS TIP FOR FREELANCE WRITERS
Ms. Garland also mentioned being able to market your skills as a writer. Since you are a freelance writer, you are probably working alone. You need to advertise what you can do so clients will come to you. I have written an article about how you can market yourself as a writer. You may want to check it out here: How to Market Services Online.
Find out if you have both stamina and flexibility and you should have what you need to succeed in this career.
Best of luck!