Writing Personal Essays for Earnings

Sometimes desperation brings out the best in you.

In early 2008 I decided to take seriously my writing pursuit. This time it was easier for me because I already had an internet connection at home. I used to go out in internet café to research and check my emails. This inconvenience oftentimes constrained my writing and I was able to do it  on weekends only.

Then in August my generous brother gave me a birthday present, a laptop. It was just in time to replace my aging laptop.

After that, there was no turning back.

It kept me busy all the time and I didn’t had any idle moments anymore because it was spent on researching, reading and browsing about writing articles and gigs. After my office work, I would stay for another five to six hours in the internet at home.

My readings on how to become a freelance writer led to me an idea of breaking the arena of web writing, the easiest and fastest way to launch a writing career.

And so I did.

The challenge in web content writing was my limited time. I was just starting the freelance writing and I was confronted by the difficulty of juggling my time between full time job and freelance writing. Meeting the deadline was hard.

However, my hunger to earn extra income continued. My desperation drove me to writing personal essays. Because I was new in the arena of writing and hardly knew the nitty-gritty of the business, the only niche I could identify at the time was writing my personal experiences.  

To my surprise, there were numerous markets for personal essays. So I reviewed their submission guidelines, wrote personal essays and sent it off. I did it faithfully for two weeks and recorded everything I sent. Then later I stopped due to the workload demand of my full time job.

Six weeks later one publication from the US sent me an email expressing his interest in the personal essay that I submitted. We had exchanged of emails and phone calls to finalize the piece. Two months after, I received a payment check of $200 and few copies of the magazine where my essay was published. 

I felt awesome! For me it was an achievement because my talent was recognized.

Just a piece of advice – Do not be discouraged if you don’t receive any reply in the first week. Generally it takes time before you will hear their feedback.