The Catholic Writers Guild

Please welcome Dennis McGeehan, a veritable treasury of ideas on where to find writing work.  He’ll be writing at the Catholic Writers Guild Blog on the ins and outs of making a living as a freelance writer.

On June 17, 2011 I retired from my career with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a career that spanned 34 years. I worked in a residential facility for people with Intellectual and Mental Disabilities. If you count the time I spent before and working my way through college, I was an employee for over 37 years. That’s 37 years of earning a paycheck and 37 years of working for someone else.

Upon retirement I knew I was not done working, only now I wanted to work for myself. I wanted the freedom to schedule my work, to work hard at times and to take my ease at others. My pension would provide the foundation for my survival, and if my efforts succeeded, I would reap the rewards, not an employer.

My plan was to finish a book I had started five years previously (still not done) and to do other writing on matters I was interested in. I would be an author and a freelance writer.

What’s the difference?

To me an author is someone who writes books. These are projects that take weeks, months even years to bring to completion. A freelance writer writes magazine articles, blogs, and other short pieces. These shorter pieces are often completed in hours or a few days.

For me the main reason to do freelance work was to bring in money on a steady basis while I finished my first bestselling book.  That is what I have pursued now for the past two years; what I have learned along the way I will be detailing in this series of articles. Full disclosure to the reader: I am very much a work in progress.

Another name for a freelance writer could be UNEMPLOYED PERSON. Every day you wake up, you are faced with the challenge of finding your next assignment (while finishing the current assignment). In many ways you are like a commission salesman who has to cold call clients and generate work for yourself. Fortunately there are many opportunities waiting to be tapped.

In the coming articles for this series I will cover the different types of writing a freelancer can do. As a member of the Catholic Writers Guild, I enjoy writing about the Faith. As a husband and father I feel comfortable writing about family matters and parenting. But these are merely different flavors of the same types of writing (these topics could appear as a magazine article or a blog). Freelance writers do gigs that most people do not think of when they imagine themselves writing. I will also give suggestions on where to find writing opportunities, how to pick and choose among the opportunities, how to maximize your income from your work, and other topics related to the business of being a freelance writer.

For those who will be following this series of articles, I make the following suggestions:

1. Make a list of the topics or areas of interest you want to write about.
2. Decide realistically how many hours a day or a week you can devote to your writing.
3. How much money do you want to make as a freelance writer? Be realistic: I’m not talking about your bestselling book, I’m talking about money you make freelancing.

As a freelancer you need this information. I strongly urge you to write down the list of topics somewhere that you can easily refer back to on a regular basis. You will do this often. Just keeping a list in your head won’t cut it, trust me on this.

That’s it for now – the next article will discuss in detail the kinds of writing a freelancer can do.

Dennis P. McGeehan

Dennis McGeehan

Dennis P. McGeehan is a husband, homeschooling Dad of eight, a Martial Artist, Freelance Writer, Author and Speaker. He is a member of the Catholic Writers Guild. His latest book is titled The Diaries of Joseph and Mary.