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slightly astray

an honest look at life on the road

The truth about being a freelance writer: my thoughts and tips

freelance writer

I’ve been working as a freelance writer for 5 months now. I still feel pretty new to this whole thing, but I have gotten some interest in hearing about my experience. So I thought I’d write a (long, long) post with all my opinions and any tips I have to share.

Hopefully, if you’re wondering whether to break out and try your hand at full-time freelancing, this will help you a bit. I’m not trying to persuade or dissuade anyone (because I totally see the pros and cons of both working in a company and freelancing). I’m only giving a completely honest view of it.

This is not a post on how to START freelancing. Don’t worry, that will come soon. I plan to write a detailed post with tips on how to start freelancing if you have no portfolio and absolutely zero prior experience (like me).

In the meantime, here are my honest opinions and what you can expect the life of a freelancer to look like:

It feels very lonely sometimes

Freelancing is a very lonely career. Most of the days, it’s just you and your laptop and thoughts. If I work from home, I could go for a couple of days without seeing another person. Most of the time, I don’t mind too much, but sometimes the aloneness could really get to me.

Day Trip from Taipei: Keelung Mountain hike in Jiufen

When I went back to Taipei for a short visit in the beginning of June, I met up with my local friend, Wanyi, and Jamie for a day trip to Jiufen. The first time I went to Jiufen was with Jamie back in December of last year. And because I’m such a laggy blogger, I never even wrote about it (but check out Jamie’s posts and pictures). Since nothing on my blog is in order anymore, I’m going to talk…

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Caturday! – Purradise Cat Cafe (Kuala Lumpur, TTDI)

Since I still seem to have trouble keeping to a blogging schedule, I thought I’d ease into it with pictures. Because who doesn’t like to see pics of cute CATS?! And because, it’s Caturday! :) Also, I really want to start blogging about Kuala Lumpur (my temporary home) and talk about small adventures I get up to when I’m not being a hermit working in my room. So we’ll start with cats! One thing I really miss with this whole…

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More gross, strange, and yummy things to eat in Taipei

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll have seen that I recently took a visa run to Taipei. I’m sure it’s no surprise that one of the reasons I picked Taipei is because I missed the food too much! I spent a glorious week stuffing my face with all my favorite foods, returning to my favorite vendors again and again. It wasn’t until after my trip that I realized that I didn’t exactly make the best use of…

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On freelancing, blogging, and loss of creativity

In the morning, as soon as I open my eyes, I grab for my phone to look at my notifications. During the night, emails have come into my inbox informing me of my tasks for the day. I go through each one and quickly form some sort of schedule of which tasks I’m going to tackle first and how long I should spend on each one. Once I feel ready to get out of bed, I sit at my desk,…

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How Kuala Lumpur was nothing like I ever envisioned: an introduction

Hi there. Remember me? :) I know it’s been a while. The short + simple answer is that I’ve been busy and focusing my time on freelancing work. The more complicated answer is that I’ve been uninspired to write and that because I’m spending most days working now, I feel like that there’s just not too much to write about anymore. Which is unfair because I really do love Kuala Lumpur a lot, so there should be no excuse for not sharing…

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A parting of ways

There are times in blogging when I wish I didn’t share so much of my personal life. It’s certainly easier to only offer travel tips or restaurant reviews or city guides. But long-time readers will know that while I do write plenty of those on Slightly Astray, those are never my best pieces, and that instead it is the fact that I let you into my life that keeps you coming back. From the very start, all I wanted to do…

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Two years of travel (in photos!)

So wow. Two years. I remember when I was finding pictures and writing my anniversary post last year. Not to be all cliché, but I can’t believe how fast the time goes by. Looking back on my 2nd year of travel, though I visited a decent number of places (both new and old), this was undisputedly the year of family. If the first year was the year of exploration and finding our groove as nomadic travelers, this year, family definitely took…

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