Week #4

I can't believe I've been doing this for four entire weeks. It's been a challenging ride already. Even if someone offered me my dream job tomorrow and I gave up this whole freelance writing thing, I still think it will have been worth it. Some of the lessons I've learned have been invaluable and I think they will help me later in life, regardless of what I'm doing. Week #4 was a week full of the those experiences. Here's a quick recap:

• Attended three networking events—I'm still holding out hope that one of these will turn into something one of these days. Regardless of the outcome in terms of actual work, I met some really interesting people. One of the things I've realized in the past few weeks is that I really need to get out more.
• Finished and submitted an article to Demand Studios—I need to think long and hard about whether I'm going to continue doing this. It's an extremely tiny sum of money for an amount of work that's not commensurate. If I do continue, I'm going to have to put less time into the articles. I put a bunch of work into the last one and then ended up having the article be too detailed. The editors subsequently ask me to do a rewrite. Way too much work for a $5 paycheck, if you ask me.
• Replied to a bunch of online ads—I think I heard back from one and I didn't get the gig. Replying to these ads has been somewhat discouraging.
• Worked on my article for the local online publication (Capital Gains)—This actually ended up being very enjoyable, though I was apprehensive about the interviewing process. I interviewed one local businessman (who was very gracious and probably spent way too much of his precious time with me). After the interview, I sat down with my notes and started writing the article so I could do it with the interview fresh in my mind and it's already half done. I'll probably have to cut some since I need to interview two more people.
• Sent a second invoice to my one client—I billed him for some ongoing work. Hopefully, some of this money will start trickling in soon.
• Landed a position with an online cycling publication called Pedal Pushers—I've been working on this one for a few weeks. I answered an ad several weeks ago and I've been communicating with them via e-mail. Last week, they asked me to write two paragraphs about my cyclocross race (with specific instructions for style) and they were very complimentary about the results. On Sunday, I got a call from them and they want me to write my first article! I'll give this one its own post later and talk about it in more detail, but needless to say, I'm really excited because I'll be writing about a subject of great interest to me.

This week's bound to be a slow week due to the impending holiday, but hopefully, I'll be able to get a lot of work done before the break.