I’m editing today–not my favorite task, and it pays less, so I’m doing my best to get through it as quickly as I can quickly without compromising quality.
That said, I can’t (or won’t, I should say) edit eight hours a day because I’d get tired and probably miss things. So I only dedicate three to four hours a day when I’m editing. At $40/hour for basic, in-line editing, that’s enough to keep my head above water. (More involved editing–including reorganization and rewriting–costs more.)
Writing from scratch is a different matter. It requires full-on creativity–no School Marm, slow-as-you-go, second-guessing. It’s a very pro-active, happening activity.
I never get tired when I’m producing copy from scratch. My adrenaline gets going, my endorphins kick in, and I’m a happy camper… And when I’m happy, great things happen creatively!
So I’m always looking for from-scratch copy to write. It’s great to have both things going, though–copy-from-scratch and editing–because then I can go longer, up-shifting and down-shifting between them. If I run out of go juice on the copy-from-scratch, I can jump to the editing until the creativity well fills again, and then go back to it.
When I’m writing, I’m alive. I hope you love what you do (career-wise) as much as I love what I do. If you do, you’re one of the luckiest people on the planet.
It was scary to hang my shingle, declare myself a freelance writer for the first time, and just “go for it”. That was six years ago. I’ve been a copywriter for seven years running now (the first year was with an on-hold script production company), and I simply can’t imagine doing anything else.
Everyone should be this happy doing what you do. I hope you are…
Settle for best. Satisfy the winner you were born to be. (Shameless plug.)
