A Day in the Life of a Full-Time Writer

The struggle it takes to write a single article, but sometimes, the rewards are worth it.

For the past few days, I’ve been working on a single article for a client.

When we first made the deal, their expectations were clear: The article has to be 3000 words long, well-researched, and highly clickable. I’d never written anything on that topic before, but I had some experience, and I thought I’d wing it as I go.

A challenge, but I can do it, right?

Turns out, I was wrong!

The topic was so novel, there wasn’t a single article on the internet I could refer to or take inspiration from. I got super frustrated and wanted to give up.

But we’d already signed the contract. If I gave up now, my client won’t be able to meet their deadlines.

And so, I persisted.

I drew from my own experiences in that area and interviewed friends and strangers who had gone through the same. I put myself in the shoes of the target audience and kept writing.

It took me eight days, but finally, I was able to put together 3112 words of highly compelling content. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the first article on the internet addressing that particular issue. This thought made me feel nervous and absurdly proud at the same time.

But I was still worried about my client’s reaction. What if they thought I took too much liberty?

I needn’t have feared because my client valued ORIGINALITY and IMAGINATION. When they read it, they told me they couldn’t have expected anything better.

The praise felt amazing, like a job well done.

But do you know what’s even better?

They offered me a 20% raise for all the extra hours I’d spent in the interviews. They said it counted as “non-article-related work,” and who was I to argue?

The final payment for the article was about TWICE the monthly salary from my day job when I started. It was definitely much more than what I make after writing for a month on Medium.

Suddenly, the eight days of frustration and hard work feel like they were totally worth it.

I clicked this selfie right after reading my client’s message on Slack. I think the smile on my face conveys it all.

I’m not saying this to brag, but to make it clear that life as a full-time writer might sound glamorous on the outside, but on the inside, it’s a daily struggle.

You’ll be pushed to your limits, asked to write about topics you’ve never heard about. Sometimes, you’ll spend hours in research that ultimately leads you nowhere. At other times, you’ll face rude strangers who ignore your requests for a quote or downright reject them.

But at the end of the day, every article is a journey. And every time you complete one, it would feel like an immense learning experience.

Being a full-time writer is hard, I’m not gonna lie.

Researching for clients and delivering exactly what they want is a Herculean task, but the satisfied comments always make my day.

As a freelance writer and content marketer, I’m committed to overdelivering on expectations and giving my clients what they didn’t even think was possible.

After all, the most valuable asset you can have as a writer is the trust your clients have in you. I don’t take that trust lightly.

Can you relate?

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