I’d been thinking about writing this post for next week, but today I was reading through Deb’s job posting for the day and came across an article she linked to: “Driving Rules for Getting to the Point with Your Lede” and thought, “Hmm, that’s a good topic, interesting headline, I wonder who in the network wrote that one…” I clicked the link and realized it was my work. Oops.
Self-flattery aside, I realize I have fallen into a pattern of writing, editing, publishing and forgetting my work. When you first become a professional writer, once you get past the “Whoo hooo!” of seeing your byline, you read and re-read every article, noting every opportunity for improvement. Once you get the hang of it, you start skimming and finally when you have tons of work coming in and going out you scan for obvious errors.
I’m not saying writing for Freelance Writing Jobs is ordinary – it certainly isn’t unless writing for the number website for freelance writers is normal, I’m confessing to falling into a routine that can leave you high-fiving a piece before recognizing it as your own. When’s the last time you’ve read your own work?
Re-reading a piece after it’s been published is important for your self-reflection as a writer. It’s not just about what you can improve on, it’s also useful to discover what you do well. I’m great at adding humor and personality to a piece, which helps people relate to what I’m writing. Knowing my strengths helps me steer toward particular assignments and also helps me recognize when to turn that off because the piece I’m working on needs less personality and straight journalism.
And what about the times you discover the editing process has rendered your piece unrecognizable or worse, wrong? It happens and has happened to me fairly recently. If you don’t check up on your work who is going to tell the editor something’s up? A reader? Yikes!
After you hit send or publish, go back and check it out. You may discover new things about yourself (like you’re a better writer than you thought) and you may find a problem before someone else does!
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