As money has been getting tighter and tighter for everyone I know, I suddenly find myself fielding a lot of questions about the work that I do. Many people think that perhaps they can easily get into freelance writing and make some money at it so they want to know what I do to earn money. I’m happy to answer these questions not only because I like to be helpful but also because it reminds me of how tough what I do actually is.

One of the things that I’ve remembered from these discussions is that most people don’t know how involved Google is with advertising methods online and how it is possible to make money yourself as a result of that. Google has everything from AdSense for Blog Content to Coupon Templates for Businesses. I mention these things in passing to people asking me questions about my work and their ears perk up because they’ve never heard of these things before.

This reminds me that it’s taken me a long time to learn what I know about the web writing and blogging business. When I first started out, I didn’t know about these things either. And the fact that I’ve picked up all of these skills over the years sometimes gets overlooked because mostly I just do what I do and that stuff all adds up in the background. But it’s a real business and a tough one and those of us who are doing it should stop to pat ourselves on the back sometimes.

Tags: adwords, business, coupon template, freelance, google, google adwords, kathryn vercillo, web 2.0, web writing

I just finished penning a post over at Real Words about how difficult it can sometimes be to figure out how to work time for personal creative writing projects into your work day when you’re already a full time writer. This got me thinking about the bigger issue of time management for writers and freelancers.

People often think that I have a cushy job which allows me to work from home kind of puttering around and playing on my computer. While it is true that I have a cushy job that lets me work from home on my computer, the reality is that I do anything but putter around. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I put in far more hours of actual work time than do my counterparts in cubicles who have coffee breaks and time to surf the web for reasons that aren’t related to work.

As a freelance web writer, I am always online and every single minute that I spend online is related to my work. Even when I’m just on one of my social networking sites, I’m usually promoting some of my writing or connecting with other web writers or otherwise doing something that’s somewhat related to my writing work. Sometimes I really can’t even tell when my work day ends and the rest of my life begins. It just kind of blends.

For the most part, I like this blending. But there are days when I feel like I’m always at work. It helps to take full days off each week and to make one of those days a computer-free day. This allows me downtime to actually just be with myself and to think about where my time goes and where I want it to go in the week to come. I think freelance writers are always struggling a bit with their time and time management. What do you think?

Tags: creative projects, kathryn vercillo, real words, time management, web writing, writing