When I started writing I was heavily reliant on Get A Freelancer for work and my client portfolio blossomed from there.

GAF is just one of several sites that provide work, and we have already covered others such as Guru.com which offers in my opinion, better work, better pay but you have to have something to offer if you stand any chance of competing.

Other sites you can take a peek include the following:

Freelance UK

This is a didactic resource filled with help and material to help you get your self organised but light on actually bringing writers and clients together.

Probably the best resource for getting you on the straight and narrow with taxes and accounting as well as providing good information on copywriting rates of pay.

Freelance Writers

This is a site that does bring writers and clients together and registration is required. A fee is payable which varies depending on the level of service you are using, but on the upside there are no commissions deducted from payments to you for completed work.

This follows a standard format of projects being posted and writers bidding on them from which a winner is selected. A unique selling point is that this is not a database driven site and it is more of a directory i.e. when you communicate with the website you are dealing with a person at the other end not an automated set of database instructions. This is supposed to help you position yourself and your work more effectively.

Worldwide Freelance Writer

This site is a cross between those two above. It is packed with information but targetted at international writers and commissions. This site acts more as a listing site where your services are given a window onto the world and if someone is looking at commissioning a piece they will contact you rather than a bidding mechanism.

For $30 or so you get an entry in their writers database for the year which compares well with $12 per month for GAF as a Gold member (which you need to have if you expect to win any real work).

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Some wag once said these were the two main food groups and given my recent intake, I’m inclined to agree.

There is something to having that caffeine injection first thing in the morning before I take the mutts out for their morning constitutional and I never really get firing unless I have that little white cancer stick burning away as well.

Aside from the obvious health issues, you have to take a step back and consider how much you are drinking in.  I had a health check up recently and obtained a clean bill of health - blood pressure is fine, heart is fine, lungs are fine - but I did notice that I was getting periods during work when I just had to get up and stroll around, which my son characterises as “pacing”.  That my friends is too much caffeine.

Working at home, it is all too easy to overdo the cups of tea and coffee so this may sound a little stupid, but watch how much you are drinking - especially if you have fresh brewed coffee.  I now only drink a cup at 11am and 3pm just so I do not overdose on the stuff - a far cry from drinking non-stop and wondering why I was bouncing off the ceiling by midday.

Remember when you are writing, your brain is being exercised and your imagination is the main tool at your disposal - anything that adversely affects either is what is known in the trade as “not a good thing”.  Take a regular break and exercise away from the keyboard and the chair, but watch the caffeine - it does things to you!

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“You don’t jump … you step, like walking off the pavement when you cross the road.

It’s noisy but you don’t hear anything as you are concentrating on what you are going to do.

Smell is the sense that is heightened the most when you are scared and can’t see anything and your ears won’t work. It stinks of piss and puke with a waft of pure freshness coming at you in insufficient quantity to clear your gut from being scared and taking away the metal taste in your mouth.

Now it’s your turn with the rear-front shuffle taking you to the black hole while your arms are aching with holding onto the weight and I want to throw up but I didn’t eat anything on purpose.

It’s pointless looking up because the cloud blanks out the stars you otherwise would expect to not see, a double negative on a good night that tells you it’s open.

Now your ears tell you what’s happening. Shouts from others that have gone before and are coming after.

Fumbling around with D-rings that pose no challenge to someone who has spent a brief life unhooking a rear fastening bra, one-handed when inebriated with a nice pair waiting for your attention.

A firm tug, gentle oscillation and then the wait for the sound that tells you Mother Earth is claiming you and she is a hard mistress.

“Fear - Relief - Panic” but I prefer “Every landing you can walk away from is good one.”

It’s taken several hours of being thrown around to get here but less than sixty seconds to get back where God intended - walking on the ground and giving it the “Big I Am” with colleagues.

Then there is the awful dawning realisation that the nearest pub is seven thousand miles away and jumping in the dark is not the scariest thing in your life.”

Twenty years ago I would not have been able to write this.

If you read this far, you know how far I have come.

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Periodically I research for myself on the subject of “writing”; that is a bit of a shocker as it is my chosen means of earning a crust.

I came across a site which you can find here - www.grammarbook.com - an American site again but informative and helpful if you just watch for those Americanized spellings.

One recommendation I found useful is avoiding the overuse of “there is”, “there are” and “it was”; something I am perenially guilty of.

Remember one of the Supaproofread writing tips - if you can dispose of a word in your piece then remove it as long as your message is not affected. This is simply good practice to impart your ideas with economy so the message is not lost in an overgrown bramble of words.

Here are some examples to chew on:

“There is a car accident reported on the news.”

My version

“The news reported a car accident”

Note the use of the active voice in my corrected version - remember with active voice, follow the sequence “Doer - Action - Event” not the reverse.

“There is some more work to be done.”

My Version

“Do more work!”

Something we have all heard our boss tell us, still it imparts the message imperatively.

Another sin I commit is using double negatives. As a mathematical scholar in my spare time, I understand a double negative means a positive so; -1 +(-1) = +2; try explaining the logic of that to an 11 year old!

When it comes to writing it is not pretty and very easy to lose your reader with the logical twists and turns. The example given was “He is not unwilling to help.” when simply writing “He will help.” is clearer and easier to both write and understand.

Finally, parallel construction was a new one on me - here, you use the same grammatical form when providing several ideas within the same sentence or piece. An example is:

“Train with weights, running and swim.”

My Version

“Train with weights, running and swimming.”

Quite a neat little site, and as I enjoy learning something new each day, I feel it was a productive few minutes.

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This one is coming out of left field as Michael would say.  I have received the absolutely strangest commission in my fledgling career; I’ve been asked to go to “parties” held at private homes up and down the country and contribute to a series of articles.

Nothing strange about that, actually sounds pretty neat when you come to think about it, going to parties, having some fun, do a little dance, make a little love and get down tonite!

Chuckling to myself as this life is far more interesting than any fiction - the commission is for reviews of swingers parties and the people that frequent them!

Now this is not pornography which is a big ”No, No!” with me, it is a commission whose intent is to actually find something out about the people involved, the organisers and participants in the “lifestyle”. 

Who are we to judge what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of someone else’s home?

I’m a little taken aback with the request, and I have accepted it because of the voyeuristic intrigue that it has stirred as this is something way beyond my personal experience, but there is also a genuine interest.  Why would someone want to see their partner having sex with someone else?  What is it that people find so gratifying or fulfilling about having some nookie outside of the traditional, exclusive relationship model?

I have been handed some basic research that has already been conducted, and indeed have spoken with one party organiser on the telephone.  Both he and his wife seemed perfectly normal and quite open about what they get up to, to them it is simply how they are. 

I suppose this is one instance where professional detachment may be stretched and objectivity tested, or maybe not, I’ll simply have to find out for myself. 

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