5 tips to start your writing career

You spend every night dreaming about starting a writing career. You would love to pay your bills doing what you like the most: writing. You start to imagine yourself writing every day. In fact, your work days would consist of putting on paper (or on a word document, who uses paper anymore?) all those stories that now wander through your mind.

And — why not — you also see yourself signing copies for a huge crowd of readers who love what you write.

To turn these dreams into reality, it’s time for you to get to work. Being a writer is a legit job, and you should consider it as such. You have to reflect on how you imagine your future, what are your priorities, what are you willing to give up, what do you want to achieve and how are you going to do it.

To help you with all of this, we are bringing you the best tips that will help you start a writing career.

1. Start today and organize your priorities

Our first tip but the most important one: start today. Not tomorrow, or next Monday, or next month when you finish that project you have been working on.

Whether you want to combine it with another job or with your daily activities, find out what’s the best time for you to write and set a schedule for each day to have time for writing.

If you put your writing hours for the end of the day, as a less important task, you will end up not doing it, or you’ll be too tired to do it well. Remember that this isn’t a hobby, it’s your job now.

So if you really want to dedicate yourself to writing, start right now! Well, finish reading this article first, and then go for it!

2. Master the proper use of grammar and punctuation.

We all make mistakes. It’s okay. The only thing that would make a mistake unacceptable would be to never learn from it.

However, good grammar and spelling are essential in writing careers. A good way to improve them is to enroll in an English class. The Internet also helps a great deal if found a reliable site.

3. Choose your specialization.

At this point, you should know what kind of writing you want to do. There are different styles of writing, and each one varies according to the project that you are going to cover. To give you a better example, writing a novel is not the same as writing a script.

So this is the moment where you must analyze your skills and discover what type you like most. Look inside yourself and analyze your writing. Reflect on your strengths and take advantage of them. Find your weak points and avoid them or try to improve them (or both).

How about writing for a newspaper? Or start writing your own novel. The writing world covers so many fields that it will be impossible for you not to find something that you like.

4. Find a place to work independently

To start a career as a writer sometimes you need the help of someone who believes in your work, and it’s also important to have contacts in order to reach more people and find more job offers.

There are several websites that offer freelance writing opportunities such as Upwork or Freelancer. These platforms are very helpful when starting a writing career since there are a large number of offers waiting to be taken. There are websites that offer incredible writing jobs.

Still, it’s worth giving them an opportunity if you need to gain experience or expand your portfolio. And who knows, maybe you’ll find a very good job offer and start becoming a freelance writer.

5. Believe it

You are a writer. It doesn’t mean that you are good or bad, only that you are a writer. Look at yourself in the mirror and repeat aloud: “I am a writer”.

Repeat it as many times as you need until you believe it. You have to convince yourself because if you don’t believe in your own talent, why should others do? Why should they help you or respect your schedules? Why are they going to read your publications if you are not a writer? This is your profession now, so own it.