It’s hard to believe it’s 2012 already! I’ve had a nice rest over Christmas and the New Year, and got started back at my desk yesterday, so I thought it was high time I wrote a fresh blog post. I’ve been over on my professional site already, at AllisonWhitehead.co.uk, writing the first of a series of ten articles there, and now it’s time to update my blog.

There is a lot I want to achieve during 2012, some of which I had intended to get further with during 2011 but didn’t, for one reason or another. There are new goals in my mind too, such as the intention to drag out my novel and polish it up and rewrite it so I can get it published on Kindle. I got a Kindle for Christmas and although I must admit I was a little skeptical of it to start with, by Boxing Day I had fallen in love with it. I get rather annoyed now if I don’t find the time to read something during the day. I’ve also found a few books for Kindle that I had read years ago and couldn’t find anywhere in print, so I am delighted about that.

But back to 2012. What are your New Year’s Resolutions for your writing? One of my main ones – apart from starting to make use of the Kindle as a platform for publishing my own work – is to blog more often and start promoting my client site. I have it in mind to add some new clients into the mix by the end of January, so to make that happen I am going to write some fresh content for my client site to get it further up the rankings and seen by more people. It’s always surprised me how many bites I get from that site, considering the relatively low traffic, so we’ll see how that goes.

I actually love the start of a New Year because it always feels as if I am turning over a new leaf. I achieved a fair bit last year but it wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, mainly because some things got put on the back burner owing to my niece being poorly and in and out of hospital. Sometimes life intervenes. But thankfully she is doing well now and I can look ahead and hope for more achievements during the year to come.

Take some time out this week to think about what you might like to achieve during the coming year. Even if you don’t achieve all your goals, you’ll likely achieve more than you would have done if you hadn’t set them out in the first place.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Let’s get one thing straight before I write anything else. I’m not against NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in any way, shape or form. In fact it’s quite the opposite – I think it’s a great idea. But although I did give it some consideration this year, I’ve decided to forego the challenge once again. There are some good reasons for this too.

Firstly I have written a novel which I hope to get out, dust off and do something with at some point in the not too distant future. I’m considering the idea of making the first two or three chapters available for free and then charging on the Kindle platform to read the rest. It’s worked for others and I’m curious as to how it might work for me.

But more than that I want to continue with a number of goals and tasks I already have in the works instead of getting sidetracked with NaNoWriMo 2011. For instance there is still a lot of work to do on my blog now that it has been overhauled. Regular posting will be one of my goals. I also have an affiliate site that has been newly created that I will be writing content for. So in a sense I will be taking on a similar goal to get writing: I’ll just have a different target each day.

How about you? Will you be focusing on NaNoWriMo this year? Or will you be focusing on some other writing goal? If you are taking part in NaNoWriMo 2011, good luck and I hope you have a novel completed by the end of it!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

What is your motivation to write?

If you don’t have one you’ll always find it harder to get going.If you are already a full time writer you have the best motivation of all – the need to earn money. But if you only write part time, fitting your writing around another job, you may need a different trigger. Whatever your trigger is, that is your motivation to write.

What's your motivation to write?

For a long time, my motivation to write was the fact that I didn’t want to work for anyone else.

I always wanted to be my own boss. I couldn’t imagine anything nicer than being able to get up every day, set my own hours, decide which jobs I would enjoy doing and not have to pretend to like a boss I didn’t respect. Believe me, every single one of those reasons was a really good motivation to write!

But your motivation to write could be very different.

Maybe you want to see your name in print. There’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe you’d like to become a famous blogger and earn thousands from your blogging efforts. Why not?

But remember this. Whatever your own personal motivation might be, hang onto it and nurture it. Don’t let anyone else know about it. They may not see the point of writing at all, let alone setting a goal to do more of it. The sole purpose of having that motivation is that it works for YOU.

You may find motivation in one or more of my Mini-Boosts. Find your motivation to write TODAY and see what a huge difference it can make.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

How busy are you with online writing these days?

I hope you’re doing well and you’ve got plenty of work lined up to lead you into the New Year and beyond. It’s been pretty hectic here, which is why I haven’t published a new blog post in quite a while.

Of course now we are into January it’s the perfect time to look ahead and think about what you want to achieve for 2011. Lots of other writers with blogs have already written on this topic, but I’m going to add my opinion because it really is a good time to decide on some goals for the year ahead for your online writing.

Why has my own online writing career led me away from my blog of late?

Well in truth it’s not just my writing that has been busy. We’ve also had a new kitchen fitted – in the middle of November, not the best time of the year for doing it but there you go – and since we also have an eBay business we’re always busy from October onwards filling everyone’s orders.

Here's one of the things that has taken me away from online writing on my blog...

So while online writing hasn’t taken a back seat, my blog has. In truth I didn’t realise how behind I’d got, so accept my apologies and know that my New Year’s Resolution is to keep up with it more often. I do enjoy it – it’s a part of my online writing efforts just as much as anything else is – and I do have plans for the New Year that should come to fruition in due course as well.

Will your online writing career take a back seat in 2011 – or not?

I’m lucky in that the reason I didn’t blog much for the last part of 2010 was largely because I was juggling online writing clients. I had decorating to do, orders to pack and Christmas shopping to complete as well of course. Oh, and we also had two lots of heavy snow that made going anywhere incredibly difficult. So yes, my blog did suffer and I’m sorry for that.

Happily though it’s been getting more visitors over time so I’m glad more people are finding it. Hopefully that will continue throughout 2011 as I share some of my plans for the year with you. That’s for another blog post though – for now it’s back to online writing!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

This is the issue concerning writing I have been pondering over lately.  You’ll notice I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks and to be honest this is the main reason for it.  Apart from having a fantastic weekend away up in London I have been smothered with client work from all directions.

Wait – what happened to my own writing?

Are you blocking out time for writing for yourself as well as for other people?

Now this influx of client work is wonderful of course because it means my writing is going well and I’ve had plenty of money coming in.  But it also means that all my own writing goals have gone to the back of the line.

So this week is going to change all that.  Things have quietened down a bit which is why I’m blogging again today.  And hopefully I will keep at it again now by putting this particular task to the top of my daily list.

My new website focused on writing clients

Other than that I have my own revamped website at www.allisonwhitehead.co.uk to focus on, and also that site needs some writing promotion in order to get it in front of its ideal audience – namely business people who need the kind of content I can supply.  I don’t expect to achieve lots this week but it would be nice to start achieving some more own goals in between working for everyone else.  To my mind these are goals that may have more long term prospects rather than bringing in instant money.

How about you?  What are you doing this week to further your own career and your own writing goals?

Has this blog post made you realise you are putting your own writing behind everything else all the time?  What can you do to give yourself some writing time as well as your clients?

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

If you read my post way back in November 2009 titled 5 writing resolutions for 2010, you will know that the first item on my list was to relaunch my main client focused website.  Even as I write this we are in the process of moving it over from Microsoft’s Small Business framework to its own hosting, so once that is complete I can start work on creating what I want and adding worthwhile content to it to draw in more clients.

Another of my goals is also starting to make some headway.  I have dabbled around with Hubpages for a while, but after finding out that a colleague of mine is making a nice amount of money each month from her Adsense account (which shows relevant ads next to all of her Hubs), I’ve decided to try and do the same.

To that end I have thought up a couple of topics and I am now researching the keywords for them.  I’m determined to do it right and make sure I target the keywords properly to get the best results, so it may take a bit longer to get the Hubs up and running, but I think the delay will be worth it.

How are your New Year goals coming along?  Are you writing more?  Looking for more online writing jobs?  Trying to carve out an online writing career?  Whatever you might be doing, good luck with it and remember to share your thoughts and comments here!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

How does your 'to do' list look each day?

Okay so what makes up the week of an online writer?  Well it depends on what kind of work you do, who you do it for and how much of it you do.

But regardless of that we all have set tasks we must do.  If I take a look at my typical writing day, I can tell you I have a number of jobs that figure pretty highly each time:

* Writing articles, blog posts and ebooks for regular clients
* Searching for new sources of work
* Submitting work according to deadlines
* Keeping my submission and business records up to date

Sometimes one or more of these items will take up more time than others.  So for example on a day that is heavy with work, I will focus primarily on that and only spend five or ten minutes looking for jobs elsewhere.  If I have a quiet day, I will make sure I focus more on my job search for new clients, as well as making sure all those boring paperwork chores are up to date.

But the point is that I plan.  I do this for all my writing jobs, and not only does it help alleviate the stress that sometimes comes with tight deadlines, it also gives you more free time.

Let’s say it is Monday morning and I know I have 20 short articles to write by Friday evening.  Okay so it’s time for some maths.  If I divide up the number of articles by the number of days, I know I have to write four articles a day every day to hit my deadline.

More usually I will build in a failsafe point as well.  What I would probably do is to try and write five articles a day and be finished a day early.  This has a two fold advantage.  First of all it gives me a spare day in hand in case anything more urgent comes up, or something else needs doing in any respect.  And secondly it means that if all goes to plan, I can submit the articles a day early.

Try it yourself and see how you get on.  Planning ahead for success as an online writer is actually very productive.  And once you get the hang of it you will be able to look at any new writing job that comes in and see how long it will be likely to take you to complete it.

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

If you have been reading my blog recently you will know that I have been setting myself some new writing goals for 2010.

How much writing cash can you fill your piggy bank up with in 2010?

One of these goals is to raise my fees to a better level.  Now I am a firm believer in things happening for a reason, and without going into a long and involved story a number of things have happened lately to make me think I am on the right track.  I really do think it’s time to step up my writing business and get onto the next level.  If I were to compare this to a game of Crash Bandicoot for example (I’m a lover of all things PlayStation), I think I’m about to hit the first bonus level!

I have been applying for several writing jobs of late, instead of relying on my contacts to send me work (which they still do, I should add – I just felt as if it was time to take more control over my writing career).  And I think I have been scoring a pretty good success rate too.

So that got me thinking.  Maybe I should be applying for higher paying jobs all the time instead of the ones I am applying for now?

I rather liked this idea, and I am also gearing up for getting out there and finding new clients that aren’t to be found in all the usual places.  Furthermore I actually got word today that I had been accepted by a company to write for them – but I am going to turn it down because the rate of pay would not match the new rates I am going to set for myself in the New Year.  (I’m not sure what those rates will be yet, but I know this job is far from being in the same ballpark.)

It was slightly scary deleting that congratulations email.  But I actually felt empowered once I had done it.

I feel as if that was the first step towards my 2010 writing career.  And what’s more, I had an email from a fellow writer whose newsletter I subscribe to each week, and she was offering a greatly discounted price on her new book about setting your fees higher as a writer.  So I bought it.

It was exactly what I needed to have at exactly the right time.  I’ve never seen a book like it before and here it was – just when I wanted it the most.

So it’s been a strange and wonderful day.  2010 seems bright and just over the horizon, and I feel as if I am heading up that short final stretch of an uphill battle… before heading over the top and seeing what’s in store next.

And keep reading, because I will share what I find on that downhill stretch next!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Do you have your writing targets set up for 2010 yet?

This is really a sequel to my earlier post about my own 5 writing resolutions for 2010.  Even as we are rushing around trying to plan for the big day on the 25th December, it’s good to set aside some time to evaluate how our writing careers have developed during the year.  We have just a few short weeks now to set new goals for 2010, and what you think about now could well become reality next year.

If you are stumped at finding new goals for next year, think about what you have achieved during 2009.  Is there anything you wish you had done but didn’t get around to?  That could be a prime goal for next year.  Did you achieve more than you thought you would?  It’s time to pat yourself on the back and ask yourself if you could do even more next time around.

Personally I think a good goal for any writer at any stage of their career would be to create more streams of income than they currently have.  For example I earn money writing for clients and I am beginning to earn more money writing for myself as well.  But this latter part of my career is one that I want to build on in different ways during 2010.  If you have read what my 5 resolutions are for the New Year, you will know that earning from Adsense on Hubpages is one of them.  Another one is creating a PLR site.  Both of these demonstrate good ways to earn additional streams of income from articles that I write.

What could YOU do to earn more money from your online freelance writing during 2010?  If you are stuck for writing goals to achieve, this is a good place to start.  Look at the fees you are charging.  Look at the amount of money you are accepting for the work you write.  Look at all the ways you could start to earn money from writing articles that you aren’t currently using.

Then make a list of goals for 2010 and see what you can do to achieve them.  I’ll keep you posted on my own efforts next year – keep me posted on yours too!

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time

Don’t worry – it is a perfectly normal feeling to have, especially if this is your first eBook contract for a client.

I’ve got an easy solution to make sure you don’t trip up, lose confidence or get overwhelmed by the task ahead of you.  Let me share it with you right now.

Too many pages?

You’re probably sitting there to begin with panicking over the number of pages you have to write.  Most of the eBooks I have written for clients have been in the region of 100+ pages.  It’s very easy to sit there at the beginning and worry about whether you have bitten off more than you can chew!

So you need to make your goal smaller.  Your current goal is to complete 100+ pages, right?  Okay so you work out how long you have to write the book.  Let’s say four weeks.  That figure could be worrying you too at the moment, so let’s break things down a little more.

If you have four weeks to do 100 pages, you need to clear 25 pages a week.  Assuming you are going to do a five day week with two days off at the weekend, that means you need to do 5 pages a day.

Now then, I’m guessing that 5 pages is a lot less intimidating for you than 100 pages, am I right?

You can do 5 pages easily, so focus on that and work on what you will need to write in those first 5 pages.  And you will probably find, as I do, that when you get into the flow of writing you will do more than 5 pages a day anyway.  So that builds in some extra time if you need it, and you might even finish writing your client’s eBook early too.

Try it and see how you get on.  I guarantee you it works – and you’ll enjoy writing that book a lot more as well!

Article source – http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Allison_Whitehead

My Online Freelance Writing Career - ... earning a living one word at a time