When Freelancing, No Idea is Too Small

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While I love the beauty of being my own boss, I sometimes feel as if I’m the worst boss ever. I have a regular set of clients I work for, but I rarely follow the advice of continuing to prospect for more work in case one of the regular sources of income dries up. This happened to me recently, and instead of immediately prospecting my tail off to replace that income, I gave myself a (much needed) mental break, finished up some projects already in the pipeline, and caught up on my reading (some was for work, so . . .)

In addition to my freelance work, I also have two YA novels I should be revising and getting ready for submission, but I’m having a hard time staying motivated with those. Luckily in all my reading I came across an article that got me excited about generating some new ideas, and encouraged writers to be more courageous when querying. Courage has never been my strong suit, so I immediately perked up and the wheels began turning.

One of my obsessions is pop culture, and believe me, I spend a LOT of time reading entertainment blogs and binge-watching TV shows on Netflix. I’m not exactly proud of these particular interests. But what if I was able to turn them into a profit? For example, when was the last time I put together an article query on something like “How Watching Old Episodes of Dawson’s Creek Helps Me Write Young Adult Fiction.” Never. With so many entertainment publications and blogs odds are I could find a home for something along those lines. And wouldn’t it be nice to sell an article based on something I watched on Investigation Discovery (Southern Fried Homicide, anyone?) If I made a list, I could brainstorm plenty of topics for magazines and other online publications, such as these:

• All things pet related
• Entertainment/movies
• Celebrity Trivia
• Travel and tourism
• Parenting upper elementary and middle schoolers
• Pop culture of the 1980s
• Women’s history
• Health and Fitness
• Book Reviews

Some of these I’ve written about, but many I haven’t. This list is only the beginning.

Do you have passions and interests you have yet to explore in your writing? What are they?

Renee Roberson is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who also works as a Blog Tour Manager for WOW! Women on Writing. Visit her blog at Renee’s Pages.