Twenty Something Writers

This post was written by Erin from College Grad Lessons

As twenty-something writers, most of us are students or young professionals that wouldn’t mind making some extra money. Although writing might be something that you just do for fun, you can use your blogging and other writing to help land freelance or part-time jobs.

I’m attending grad school full-time starting this fall and have been looking for a part-time job. I currently work full-time as a web developer and training specialist and recently interviewed for a part-time/contract web design position with an interactive design firm. One of the samples I sent to the firm was a blog template that I built for WordPress, so the person interviewing me asked if I had experience writing. Although I hadn’t planned on talking about College Grad Lessons (something that I do for fun and still needs a lot of work), it was the perfect writing sample for web content. The positive response that I received regarding my blog made me realize that I should consider freelance/part-time copywriting as another type of part-time job to pursue during grad school.

As a twenty-something writer, here are ten freelance/part-time jobs to consider:

1. Copywriter – Search job postings and contact local PR and design firms to find potential copywriter positions. Send a link to your blog and few other writing samples and highlight your computer skills.
2. Blogger – Blogs are becoming increasingly popular for small business marketing, but business owners often lack the time to research and write blog posts related to their business. Watch local job postings and search for businesses with blogs that need more or better content to find potential blogging jobs.
3. Web Content Editor – Small businesses and design firms may be interested in hiring a web content editor to edit copy and add content to web sites. Look for job postings with WordPress listed as a desired skill.
4. Tutor – Local schools or private companies may be looking to hire English tutors. Also consider posting flyers or an ad in a school newspaper to find interested parents and students. In high school, I tutored as a part-time job and made a decent amount of money. In addition to helping students with homework, you could offer creative writing lessons.
5. PR Intern – My first job after college was an intern position on the Digital Public Affairs team at a PR firm. I monitored blogs for clients and even wrote blog posts and web content. Small, traditional PR firms may be interested in learning from your blogging and social networking experience. Larger firms may have specific digital/online PR intern positions.
6. Freelance Journalist – Contact local newspapers and magazines to see if they need a twenty-something writer to review bars and concerts, cover local school events or other topics that could be covered by a twenty-something. If you’re flexible, consider writing stories in exchange for concert tickets, meals, etc. This could be a great way to cover your “going-out” expenses, build professional writing experience and have fun.
7. Custom Invitation and Greeting Card Specialist – This could be a great part-time business for writers with a passion for poetry and graphic design. Create samples and contact local gift shops, community organizations, wedding planners, party venues and other related businesses.
8. WordPress Consultant – Offer WordPress help to people in your existing network (think professors, friends of your parents with businesses, etc.) and ask them to recommend you to other people in their network. Your services could range from setting up domain names and installing WordPress to helping people create a blog theme and post ideas.
9. Online Community Manager – If you have a decent amount of blogging experience, you may be able to find a job managing an online community. This could range from approving comments to welcoming new members to writing featured posts.
10. Social Networking Consultant – If you’ve successfully gained a strong following through your blog, Twitter and other social networking, others might be willing to pay for your help. Offer assistance for writing bios, crafting profiles and creating a personal brand.

The best part about all of these jobs is that you get to do what you enjoy – write!

I’ll be posting the progress of my freelance job search periodically at College Grad Lessons, so be sure to come visit me there!

What part-time jobs have you landed thanks to your writing skills? How did you find the job?

This post was written by Jessica from Classy in Philadelphia:

Thinking back on my writing history, I realized that one thing has remained constant through my 15 or so years of writing. I’ve always kept some kind of diary, journal, or blog.

I started with a diary probably when I was about six. It had a tiny lock on it, and I hid the key ever so cleverly in my desk drawer. I’m not sure what I wrote about, but I know that I eventually lost the key and had to rip the small plastic diary open. Sort of defeats the purpose, huh?

In first grade, we kept journals in class. I wrote about the most random things in an attempt to fill my journal the fastest. On each page, I came up with a topic and briefly wrote on that topic. The topics were quite random….they ranged from odes to bacon to poems to my mom.

As I grew older, I kept journals in marble notebooks that I decorated with magazine cut-outs. Check out my post today to get a glimpse of my infamous notebooks. I filled these journals with stories about boys, school, and friends.

As the Internet became ever more popular, I moved my journal online to Blurty. After Blurty, there was Xanga. And after Xanga, there was Livejournal. Of course, after Livejournal, I moved to my newest and most current home Blogger. I loved the idea of putting my words onto the computer screen and getting instant responses from friends and readers. I still love the concept, and it’s what keeps me blogging.

After all these years of journaling, I realized: this is what makes me a writer. Some people might consider writing in a journal silly or cheesy, but I truly believe that writing every day has helped me to become a better writer. It doesn’t matter that the grammar is off, or the spelling isn’t perfect; it’s shaped my writing and given me inspiration to keep going.

I’ve mentioned this before on my blog, but one of my goals is to write a chick lit novel. Reading through my journals, diaries, and blogs has been a great source of inspiration for the kind of material I hope to write. Sometimes the easiest way to find a story idea, is through your own personal history. How will you remember those silly details and nuances without having the written or typed documentation? I feel lucky to know that I have whole books of my life already documented.

I think that it doesn’t matter what you’re writing, but just that you’re writing every day. What’s so great about blogging is that every day that we blog, we must think of a topic that will interest our readers. We’re constantly brainstorming, drafting, and editing. Every day, we start the process again.

I no longer hand write in a journal. I am relying on my blog to relay the history of my college years to me.

Do you write in a journal or diary? Why or why not? Do you think that blogging or journaling has helped to improve your writing skills? Discuss in the comments below!

This post was written by Tom from Winston-Salem’s Lone Beatnik:

I’ve often thought about how I write; what the process is that I go through when I put pen to paper, or more accurately when I put my fingers on the keyboard. I don’t really know how I write– that actual act of writing, and creating a piece of writing, it’s a mystery to me in some sense.

Writing has always been an organic thing for me. I remember during high school, when we’d do in-class writing, I would always start writing while my peers furiously made outlines. I always ended up doing well, despite my lack of planning and despite finishing much earlier than my classmates (modesty prevents me from going any further with this).

Though I began to write outlines and become more organized as I went through college and into graduate school, I tried to keep things fairly spontaneous. For me, how much time I had to write a paper didn’t matter as much as the point when inspiration would dawn on me. While other students would grind out papers, it seemed as though my papers sprung almost out of nowhere. It could be weeks in advance or a couple days before the deadline, however option #2 happened a lot more than #1. Organic is the way I would describe my writing process; I’m not necessarily in control of it, but it is control of me. When inspiration dawns upon me, that is when I write and not before.

One time, I was meeting with a professor during his office hours and I described to him my approach to writing. I described how I approach writing in the same way as a free-swinging slugger in baseball approaches hitting- say somebody like Vlad Guerrero. I just write, I don’t think about it and I just let the words spill onto the page. Granted I do go back after and clean up and revise (I can be like Kerouac only so much) but for the most part I just write. The flip side of that are the people who meticulously plan, making numerous outlines and taking exhaustive notes. I would compare them to baseball players like Tony Gwynn or Ted Williams. They spend hours practicing, crafting, going over notes or reviewing film (in the case of Gwynn).

(OK, the baseball analogies will stop. I hope that made sense, even if you aren’t a baseball fan. There are other examples from other sports but I like that one the best)

It’s the difference between the “natural” and the craftsman. That’s not to say that one approach is better than the other, but there are very strong and clear differences between the two.

But because of this, I always worried that my “natural” writing ability would escape me at some point. Because I didn’t know exactly I did that made my writing good, I worried that ability would leave me behind and I wouldn’t know how to get it back or replicate it. I feared something that my high school teacher referred to as a “case of the stupids.” But she also said that such things don’t exist and that’s what I continue to tell myself. I just keep on doing what I do, because it’s taken me pretty far. And I don’t plan on changing for anyone, at least as long as I can help it.

But what about you all? Do you think of yourself as a natural writer, or as a master craftsman and tactician? Do you think I’m slightly crazy? Did this article make any sense? Respond away!