What Are Your Favorite Kinds of Writing Projects?

Many writers have a particular favorite genre that they focus on. Then there are those of us freelancers who like to dabble in just about anything that comes along. Taking new projects is good all the way around—it helps develop new writing skills, it keeps us from getting bored (though we love steady writing gigs, even the most lucrative work gets a little stale after awhile), and it gets us out of our comfort zones now and then. In my opinion, freelance writers owe it to themselves to accept all types of things—clients like to see the range of work that we’ve done, and, as I already said, it’s good to accept a new challenge once in awhile!

But even the most versatile writers have their favorite kinds of projects.

I still prefer features over most other kinds of writing, although they tend to be the most time-consuming, between interviews, background research, and of course, the writing itself. But I find that I get the most satisfaction from putting together a well-done feature for a topic I have strong interest in. This lets my geek side (the lover of research) run wild and get my fix, and also my naturally curious side ask a lot of questions and find out even more about the subject.

I’ve also really come to enjoy blogging since I shifted my focus more to personal experience. I know more about this business than others, but I certainly don’t think of myself as an expert, so it was a challenge to try to come up with material for posts on things I definitely didn’t feel qualified to talk about yet. Since I’m talking more about my own experiences (both good and bad), I find that it’s easier to find things to blog about. I vowed to get back into writing fiction this year, but I think a big reason of why I’ve gotten away from it is that the whole process just seems very overwhelming to me at this point.

What about you? What are your favorite kinds of writing projects?