The Day-to-Day Life of a Freelance Writer
Showcasing the flexibility of freelance writing as a career
What is my average day like?
To preface this, my life —at least as far as work goes— is not very interesting. Indeed, freelance writing entails the same monotonous daily activities that a 9-5 might offer. The only difference is that I am at the helm of the operations, whereas in an ordinary job, somebody else determines the way I spend my time —and, evidently, even that is changing, as start-ups are growing more and more towards a freedom-for-employees first approach. Thank goodness.
In any case, I will proceed with even more candidness: while, of course, I love writing, this blog’s existence —meaning, this website’s blog, not just this article in particular— is based on practical concerns. Namely, my desire to have more traffic coming into my website, in the hopes that (1) more people read my work and (2) that I can generate more clientele as a writer. According to my SEO specialist, the more blogs I write on this website containing keywords such as “freelance writer,” “writer,” and so on, and so forth, the better my website’s search visibility will become. I have no clue how any of that works —that’s why I hired a specialist— but that’s why I am here at the moment, writing to you all about my extremely ordinary life.
In any case, where ought I to start? I’ll be quite honest: I am very schedule-oriented. Writers tend to enjoy the freedom that accompanies the freelancer’s life, to work whenever they want. I’ve dabbled in that for sure, but the more I have stepped into that direction, the worse my results have been. That’s just me though, so don’t take that —or anything else in this article— as my prescription of universalizable advice to all.
Unless I am going out with my girlfriend on one of our amazing adventures together, my day generally starts as follows: waking up, I immediately drink 40 ounces of water. Then, I wash my face, brush my teeth, and go to the gym to lift weights. I am blessed in the sense that my partner is also a powerlifter, so we get to work out together almost every day! We don’t live together yet, therefore it’s a relief knowing that, despite that, we still get to spend frequent quality time together.
When I finish lifting weights, I go back home, take a shower, eat a big breakfast, and head to the train. Once I am on the train, I read the entire time. I’ve always found the train to be a great place to either get reading done or to get work done. It can be noisy, but that’s nothing white noise and noise-canceling headphones can’t fix.
I take the 6 train from the Bronx (Pelham Bay) usually to Union Square, 14th-street. I love to do my work from cafes —I can’t really explain why, but the words and work seem to flow best in this environment for me. I generally spend about 4-5 hours in a cafe writing, sending out emails, working on my website, editing articles, taking meetings, sending out pitches, reading up on how to be a better freelancer, and other administrative and marketing-related matters.
By the 4 or 5 hour mark, I tend to get a bit light-headed. The words and work stop flowing as well. This happens even after merely 3 hours at a time. My policy is quality over quantity for my work, so whenever I begin to feel like I am faltering, I pack up my things and take about an hour-long walk. Walking has always been a profoundly positive source of inspiration for my writing —I cannot begin to express the number of ideas my mind has generated during these walks.
After this walk, I may either grab something small to eat, go to a different cafe for about an hour to get more work done, or I may go back on the train to go back home. It really depends on how I am feeling on any given day which of these options comes to fruition. Intuition is a strange phenomenon, and one can never predict which way it will take you. Indeed, it’s so strange, that one even questions its existence from time to time. Yet, its power clearly has sway over us, and, if Wittgenstein’s Tractatus can teach us anything, it is that some aspects of reality are either too complex to speak about or, at the very least, so complex that we haven’t yet found an accurate use of language to describe these features of existence.
When I get back home, there are a few things I might do. At least two days out of the week, I will use my AirDyne bike to do High-Intensity-Interval sprints. If I am not doing these, I will make myself a large dinner, and then I will either work until I go to bed —which is roughly around 8 PM— or I will read until I go to bed. Lately, I’ve been opting for the latter, for the sake of warding off burn-out.
Is that really it? Freelance writing sounds like a breeze!
That’s my day-to-day life as a freelance writer, on paper. Occupationally, it’s quite simple. But there is clearly something missing in my above characterization of the life of freelance writing —my life as a freelance writer, to be specific. I am by no means saying that the following is the unanimous experience of freelance writers —though, I’ve read quite similar accounts on the blogs and articles of other freelance writers.
On the one hand —especially when I am writing, rather than doing administrative or marketing-related work— I am almost in a constant state of flow. That is, I am mostly locked into my work very deeply. I am not easily distracted and time often goes by very quickly.
On the other hand, there is always an implicit sense of loneliness that accompanies my work. Freelance writing is almost by default, a solitary endeavor. And to be fair, such solitude is a huge motivation for me to continue freelance writing. Generally speaking, I work much better alone than in groups —this is, of course, barring working with editors, which almost always barely feels like I am working with someone. Editors are, in my experience, very hands-off —I can only think of a handful of times where I have actually spoken with an editor, either on the phone, on video chat, or in person. Most of their input is through text comments via emails or through comments embedded within my work documents. The outcomes from this sort of working relationship have, in my experience, always exceeded the quality of group-effort outcomes.
However, this doesn’t negate the need for human contact. And what is chronically experienced —albeit, implicitly— by creative types like myself, can be expressly seen in an amplified form in Albert Camus’ The Plague:
Still, if it was an exile, it was, for most of us, exile in one's own home. And though the narrator experienced only the common form of exile, he cannot forget the case of those who, like Rambert the journalist and a good many others, had to endure an aggravated deprivation, since, being travelers caught by the plague and forced to stay where they were, they were cut off both from the person with whom they wanted to be and from their homes as well. In the general exile they were the most exiled; since while time gave rise for them, as for us all, to the suffering appropriate to it, there was also for them the space factor; they were obsessed by it and at every moment knocked their heads against the walls of this huge and alien lazar-house secluding them from their lost homes. These were the people, no doubt, whom one often saw wandering forlornly in the dusty town at all hours of the day, silently invoking nightfalls known to them alone and the daysprings of their happier land. And they fed their despondency with fleeting intimations, messages as disconcerting as a flight of swallows, a dew-fall at sundown, or those queer glints the sun sometimes dapples on empty streets. As for that outside world, which can always offer an escape from everything, they shut their eyes to it, bent as they were on cherishing the all-too-real phantoms of their imagination and conjuring up with all their might pictures of a land where a special play of light, two or three hills, a favorite tree, a woman's smile, composed for them a world that nothing could replace.
COVID-19, of course, amplified the point being made by Camus. One of my points is as follows: creative individuals need to be capable of movement. Pestilences like COVID did away with our ability to move around, and therein, took our “home away from home,” away from us, so to speak. Because I could not go to cafes —that, I had to stay home in quarantine for months on end— my work suffered. Not to mention, the loneliness was absolutely crushing. Hence, my relief to finally be capable of returning to my normal routine after nearly two years of COVID restrictions.
But more than this, freelance writing has always brought with it —and I can only speak for myself in this respect, though, again, I’ve read countless testimonials from other freelancers expressing similar sentiments— an implicit sense of loneliness. Even in the midst of my above-mentioned Zen-like state of working, deep within the core of my Being, I always feel as if there is something which I am missing. Something which, if I were in a newsroom, for instance, would be ameliorated. Namely, other creative spirits who, in good faith, are interested in producing the best work possible. And the only way I know that I will attain this, is twofold: either by getting a full-time staff writing job or by going to graduate school in philosophy.
Until then, I only have myself to rely upon. Resolutely, I take pride in that, while full-well recognizing its incompatibility with long-term creative, mental, and practical stability.
