As human beings we keep on learning new things. Whether it’s in school, college or on the job. As a freelancer, we couldn’t succeed if we didn’t keep ourselves open to learning every day with every article or at the very least – every gig.

Learning leads to experience which leads to expertise.

That’s the story of a freelancer. You don’t need a Master’s in English, Communication or Journalism to be successful as a writer. All you need is the love of learning. We, as freelancers start learning from the beginning. Our first article, first gig, first pay check, first returning client and let’s not forget – first scam.

Learn from mistakes.

Every writer has either fallen for a scam, missed a deadline, or generally been careless with keeping in touch with a client. All of these happen at some point or other. We’re humans and mistakes happen. But if we keep on repeating them we’re stupid. Learn from them and we get wise. It’s a simple formula really.

Be smart.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. A large part of the learning process of a freelancer is to read, read and read some more of authority blogs and books of established and successful writers. If you’ve fallen for a scam, read up on the kinds of scam there are, what to watch out for and how to avoid them. Missed a deadline? Find out how other writers stick to their schedules and what techniques and tools do they use. Utilize every resource available to avoid making the most common mistakes freelancers make. Sure, nothing teaches a lesson better than a mistake, but mistakes can be avoided by being prepared.

Don’t be dependant on your niche.

Sticking to one genre, or one topic of writing can severely limit a writer’s exposure as a freelancer. Depending on a niche to make you successful is not smart planning. Take one topic or genre at a time. Learn about them. Write about them. Keep them in your portfolio for times when you’re short on jobs related to your niche. Even if you’re not short of work, sometimes a writer needs a break. Writing about a different topic can be a breath of fresh air.

Have something to add to these? Share your views in the comments and add to the list of things we learn on the job. Stay tuned for the things I’ve learned on the job so far.

A freelancer is easy to please. All you gotta do is accept their submission, pay them on time and tell them they do a good job. Really, how hard is that? As a freelancer, I’m learning to appreciate every small thing. Someone replying with a rejection is also appreciated. At least they bothered to tell me they were rejecting my application! That’s more than I can say for a lot of freelance writing jobs out there.

Every freelancer has a bliss. Something that makes them feel successful, happy, content and rewarded. Whether its getting so much work that they have to turn employers away, or getting published in their favourite magazine, Getting that big fat pay check for which they worked diligently or finding out that someone other than yourself reads your brand new blog.

That last one would probably be me if it happened to me. Since it hasn’t yet, my bliss till now is a little different. My freelancing bliss is having my article accepted without a single revision! Yep, you heard me. My web article did not require any changes from the editor. I got a “This article is ready to go” e-mail and boy did it feel good!

What’s your bliss as a freelancer?

In my last post, I boldly claimed that I knew blogging like the back of my hand. Now I can just imagine the looks I’d have gotten from people who treat their blogs like a business and continuously do so much to make it productive that they can point out ten things that I’m not doing right in this blog with just a glance. The good thing is that so can I. Apart from setting up a blog, updating it regularly, using similar templates for my blog and portfolio blog to give it a sense of connection, I haven’t done anything at all. There is no interactiveness here, nothing to tell about the author and absolutely nothing to sell. To begin with I’ll point out five things that I know I’m doing wrong. Five is all my ego can take at the moment!

1. No ‘About Me’ page – There should be one. A picture of the writer is great to associate with the blog but what is the writer like? A page about the writer and/or blog is as important as the blog itself. So why haven’t I one? Because I haven’t quite worked out how to add a page in blogspot when clearly it doesn’t let us put up separate pages like wordpress.

2. No pictures with my posts – This is something I need to work on. Sadly, Flickr is blocked in UAE (which is where I am) so I need to find other sources. I know there are several other sources. I could make an entire blog post out of it. Suffice it to say, I’m lacking in this area because I had this idea to make my own illustrations for posts. The only thing stopping me is that I don’t know how to make illustrations. It’s in my ‘things to learn’ list.

3. I’m not selling my services through this blog – Yep, it’s the biggest mistake a freelance writer could make. Any potential client coming by my blog has no idea what kind of writing I do or what services I offer. Do I write web content? or blogs? Or do I write for print media? What kind of different writings can I do? No one going through this blog would know.

4. No blogroll – I don’t spread link love. Another faux pas, one that is in the works. I subscribe to countless freelancing blogs. And every week they come up with some really great posts and articles about the business of freelancing. Yet I read them, hoard them but don’t share them.

5. No promotion of my blog – I haven’t done any promotion of ‘The Base’. I have possibly one reader which is the witty Sal, and he probably stumbled upon my blog through one of the comments I made on some freelancing blog. Him finding my blog can be chalked off as a fluke because the number of writing blogs I’ve commented on can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I also don’t use any of the social networking sites to promote my blog except for linkedin. I use Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Stumble Upon and Twitter as well. I’m on a couple of forums too yet the promotion hasn’t happened. And its not like I don’t know how to promote. I do. Had I stayed back home I would have been working for a major local marketing firm. My internships were all in marketing departments and I was lucky to intern in firms that believed in sucking the intern’s brain dry through work. Promotion of my blog is one of the things that will happen in its time.

If I know what I’m not doing right with my blog, then why have I not fixed it yet? Because I’m a firm believer in everything having its own time. It will possibly seem a weird philosophy to most but I like to plan and move things forward in stages. I want to enjoy the process of doing things. I enjoy seeing the progress my changes make. I have given myself six months to develop my blog the way I want it to. In the meantime I will be learning more and more things that will help me. Too much, too soon is not something I want. I don’t want success soon. I don’t want big bucks soon. I want to improve and progress as a writer.

All this does not mean that I don’t have big plans for myself. I most certainly do. My plans are so big that when I accomplish them all, I’ll be super woman! With a different costume of course and a laptop as my super power. Patience and hard work is the name of the game called success.

Have anything to add to my list of ‘things I’m doing right?’ What did you do wrong when you started out?

If there’s one thing I know, it’s blogging. Having been doing it for four years I can safely say that blogging is what I do best. It’s also what made me forget formal article/essay writing for a while. So when I discovered NaBloPoMo yesterday, my ears perked up and my eyes got shiny. I know, bad analogy.

To be honest, I can’t even pronounce the abbreviation. It’s easier to say National Blog Posting Month than NaBloPoMo. After deciding not to participate in NaNoWriMo (at least it rhymes!), I came across this. Needless to say, I found it interesting! So what if I can’t pronounce it? It sounds like fun and it is completely doable!

I signed up today, but I registered my personal blog. For this blog, I have plans. And NaBloPoMo is not featured in them. Those ‘plans’ are that I have an open list of topics that I will be blogging about here. If I do the NaBloPoMo here, I’d run out of them and frankly not do justice to the posts. And I have this innate habit of rambling after a long day at work…and these days I am having long days thanks to the work that I’ve gotten (Post coming up on that very soon).

So, interested in my personal, non-freelancing life? Send me an email, tell me about yourself and assure me you’re not a stalker/plagiariser/antagonise-r and I’ll send you a link.

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This year was the first time I heard of NaNoWriMo. Alright, I admit, I was pretty out of it before I started freelancing. You can’t blame me! I was pursuing a bachelor’s degree! Having the time of your life in college is some serious hard work, you know?

I heard about NaNoWriMo at the Muse Conference where every one was talking about it and a lot of wonderful people kept trying to get me to sign up. I thought long and hard about it. I really want to sign up. But I haven’t. I’m going to sit this year out.

Why? Because I’ve never written a short story let alone attempt a 50,000 word novel! See how huge that number is? But If I’d known how to write fiction, I would have signed up in a jiffy. The other reason I’m not even considering signing up is that November will be filled with a lot of travelling this year. Okay so that’s as lame an excuse as the first one.

Here it is, the real reason: I am petrified. I haven’t had the time to process such a huge challenge. I’m not confident in my abilities to write fiction and I hate not reaching the finish line which means that if I don’t complete the 50,000 word I’d be berating myself endlessly and knowing me would steer even further from fictional writing.

So, next year I’ll be signing up. I’ll have worked on a story and plot, outlined my chapters, learned how to write dialogues that move the story forward, and envisioned a start, middle and end. Sound like a lot of work? Hey I know writers who are all geared up for the challenge! They have their pencils sharpened or fingers poised over their keyboards already in anticipation!

Next year I’m going to be one of them.

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