Monday, January 17, 2011

Writing Jobs Come In All Shapes And Sizes

By Phil Guye


I'm usually curious when I see a web-based ad for writing work opportunities because, for one, I am a writer, but possibly more so because there are many types of writing gigs.

When a lot of us think of writing job opportunities, we picture a newspaper position, or a novelist or short story writer, but there are various other kinds of writing jobs that hardly ever come to mind.

The other day I spotted an ad asking for a writer who could supply 20 articles on food and nutrition for a new website that was introducing in a couple of months. The person who had placed the advertisement wanted them all within a month and was ready to pay $1,000 to do the job.

What stunned me the most about this particular work was that it paid $500 to start, and $500 when the task was finished. All the writing job opportunities I've had compensated upon completion of the assignment.

I found one more position for a construction newsletter, which was one of the more exciting writing job opportunities I have seen mainly because it paid a yearly salary, with health insurance plus benefits, but was still regarded as a largely freelance gig.

One of the more interesting writing work opportunities I've personally been offered was to write a book on a type of cancer about which there's obviously not a great deal of literature. That was 1 of the several gigs I actually ended up turning down, simply because I have mainly been a journalism writer, and did not really know how to deal with writing an entire book.

I've come across advertisements looking for essay writers, poetry, and, of course, the more unscrupulous aspects of adult material or college term papers. Writing work opportunities also come in all size and shapes, and it is certainly not a one- size-fits-all type of field.

I've often gravitated more toward newspaper and magazine writing because those are fields where I feel the most relaxed and know that I can do a good job. I have written a number of short stories and have attempted to write a novel, but those have typically not panned out for me the way in which other writing jobs have.

The best advice that I can provide to a particular person looking for writing work opportunities is to look for anything you can imagine yourself actually doing with a certain degree of competence, after which give it your best shot. I can say in all honesty that there's absolutely no worse feeling than engaging in a writing job where you realize very early on that you've gotten in over your head, or obviously have no clue what you are doing.




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