How I Quit My Day Job and Started Freelance Writing Full-Time
You can do it too.
“I quit!”
The words slipped from my lips with strong emotion on March 31, 2022. “I’m a mom now. I can’t cry every night anymore. I’m done.”
Those were the words I cried when I quit my job of five and a half years. I signed my resignation, turned in my badge, and walked out of my former place of employment. Instant relief flooded my body. I was never going to have to come to this torture chamber again.
I didn’t have a back-up plan. I didn’t even have an interview lined up. At this point, I had no idea where my life was headed, and I had accepted that. My husband and I had talked about it before I actually said, “Hasta la vista” to my job.
We had savings, and although neither of us was thrilled about losing my steady income, I was determined to find some way to contribute to our household funds.
Even though I had no backup plans on March 31, 2022, I started a new job on April 1, 2022. Before you assume it was a writing job, I’ll tell you it was not.
I wouldn’t become serious about freelance writing until 2023 and would have to go through some hurdles to get there first, but I first must share how my first experience working online led me to where I am now.
March 31, 2022, Evening
I’m on my computer, scrolling through jobs, and applying to anything and everything that seems relevant to my past experience.
I peruse my way through several work-from-home Facebook groups. My true dream is to work from home, because I do not like driving, and I want to stay close to home for my family.
I’m reading a Facebook group when I discover a (now defunct) Virtual Assistant company hiring freelancers–no interview required, and all I have to do is pass a couple of assessments. Okay, this sounds too good to be true, the skeptic in me thinks.
I’m aware there are many online scams, so I’m not sure about this. I researched the company and found very little information on it, other than a YouTube video from a girl who claimed to work there. She seemed legit, so I thought, “Hey, it can’t hurt to give it a try?”
So, I passed the initial assessment with flying colors and then passed the longer assessment. I’m cleared to start work on April 1st.
April 1, 2022, 6 A.M.
I started my new online job, and life is amazing. I’m making $13/hour, which is $9 less an hour than what I made at my past job, but I’ll take whatever money I can make. I’m living the dream. I can work whenever I want and also care for my 8-month-old son.
June 15, 2022, 7 P.M.
It’s my anniversary, and my husband and I are returning home from celebrating. The last few months have been full of ups and downs, especially related to my work. I’ve connected with others who work for the company thanks to Facebook and Discord.
I love the work I’m doing (which is a little bit of everything, and I never get bored). My primary job is to receive and answer any requests received through a smartphone app.
The requests are anything from ad-creating to texting their son to planning a toddler’s birthday party. The wildest request was from a lady trying to sue her apartment complex, and she was having us create a detailed list of comparable prices for the items she lost. This list was long.
I’m now making $16-$17 an hour. The caveat is the company is chaotic and disorganized, and their systems are buggy. Work isn’t always guaranteed.
I’m shocked when I log in to my work portal to see my profile is no longer active. What? How can this be? I’m one of the highest-rated team members.
I go to my Discord to learn that I’m not alone, and 90% of my Discord group has also been let go.
I panic. I cry. This was my livelihood.
The job wasn’t going to last forever–I sensed that–it was just a stepping stone to working online. Mostly, I grieved the loss of a job I loved for the first time.
So I decided to shift perspectives. I needed to decide what to do next because my family depended on me to make money.
June 16 to November 2023
“Hi, I’m Nicole Kinkade, and I’m a Virtual Assistant…”
I decided I was going to become an independent Virtual Assistant. I wanted to do work like what I was doing for the other company but with transparency and fewer technical issues. So, I created my website, a portfolio, Facebook, and Instagram.
At the time, I was marketing myself as Nicole Kinkade, Virtual Assistant. I also posted a handful of blog posts on my website.
I wanted to show off my writing skills, so I had something to show clients interested in them. (I still wasn’t thinking I’d pursue writing full-time–maybe just as a service among a host of other admin services I’d offer.)
My focus shifted to marketing myself, so I attended as many HNP networking events as possible. I also scheduled several one-on-one meetings with professionals of all backgrounds. I even met a pet medium. Most notably, though, I met a ThetaHealer.
What is ThetaHealing? I’ll link you to ThetaHealing.com, and you can read all about how it works if it sounds like something you’re interested in. Reading about it piqued my interest, and I wanted to give it a try.
(This post is not an ad for Theta Healing, nor am I suggesting it’s right for you. It’s part of my story, and simply that.)
I didn’t reach out to her right away to become her client. We met in August, and I didn’t contact her until November about signing up for her sessions.
In August, I also took on my first independent client, and I would work with her until December. I helped her clean up her email, transfer her email data from GoDaddy to Google, and a host of other tech-related subjects.
I struggled to stay motivated. Being someone’s only virtual assistant was a new kind of stress. I also felt uneasy transferring files and working with a client’s data.
It was a huge liability, and the last thing I wanted was to be responsible for losing someone’s treasured files.
I felt like something was missing in my life, and I was stuck, so I reached out to the Theta Healer and booked three sessions.
Confidence, not knowing where to go next, and how I felt I didn’t have a voice were the big topics we discussed. In the end, she brought to my attention that I know what I want to do, and I know what I’m good at–I, at the time, didn’t know how to make it happen.
Writing was the answer. It’s always been the answer.
I’ve always wanted to write (ever since I was about eight or nine years old), but I was told time and time again that writing was a dying craft and machines would take over the need for writers. Keep in mind, I was first told this around 2005.
It’s 2023, and we’re still talking about Artificial Intelligence and how it’s killing the need for writers. Maybe it’s closer to it than it was in 2005, but it’s nowhere close to being able to mirror human writing–and plenty of business owners recognize this.
December 2022
After my ThetaHealing sessions, I started searching for “writing” and “writer” on job boards. That’s when I realized writing jobs are everywhere, and why on Earth had I not believed I was qualified for them?
Sure, I’m not qualified for every writing job, but I’m qualified to write about some topics, and I have written about various business-related topics on my blog.
So I just started applying. I applied to every writing job I thought I might be qualified to do and even jobs I wasn’t qualified for, but what the heck? It was worth a shot.
December 31, 2022
I’m getting ready to go to my mom’s to celebrate New Year’s and Christmas–there was a blizzard on Christmas, so we weren’t able to celebrate the holiday as a family.
I check my email moments before we’re about to get in the car, and I see I have a message.
It’s from one of the writing jobs I applied for and, as you can imagine, the rest is history.
January 9, 2023
It’s my birthday, and my birthday present is writing my first PAID article. I’m giddy with excitement. The article may not be the most interesting topic or something I’d even considered writing about previously, but I’m getting paid to write it–and that’s all that matters.
October 2023
I’ve been writing consistently (almost) every day for the last nine months and getting paid. Now I know it’s possible to get paid writing online, even in a difficult economy.
Maybe I just got lucky, I don’t know, but the secret is to keep looking everywhere–the writing jobs are out there if you want to find them, and you’re qualified for at least some of them.
The last year and a half was a ripple effect, and I’ve always believed everything happens for a reason. Getting paid to write online isn’t hard. What’s hard is scaling–which is where I’m at now, and what brings me to Medium.
Am I expecting Medium to pay me a living wage? No. What I’m expecting from Medium is to provide me with a platform to connect with other writers, learn from them, and encourage me to write more every day while hopefully making a few pennies in the process.
My Advice to Struggling Writers
If you’re struggling to find paying clients in this economy, you’re certainly not alone. I hear every day from writers on social media who are struggling to find paid work.
Keep writing.
Even when you don’t have client work to write, or if you’ve never had clients but deeply desire them, just write! It’ll keep the writing juices fresh for when you finally land a client (and you will, if you really want to!)
If nothing else, you’ll have recent writing to share with prospective clients, and that alone can help set you apart from others applying for the same job. If you were hiring a freelancer, wouldn’t you rather see recent work samples than work from ten years ago?
So, what are you waiting for? Start writing!
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