I like to say, “yes.” I like to give encouragement, advice, and even the occasional bracing hug. (But only if I know you really well, so don’t get any ideas.) I also intend this blog for beginning freelance writers, baby birds with your beaks open, chirping away for small, slimy worms of wisdom to sustain you until you spread your wings and fly away. That said, I almost hate writing this post, but it needs to be done. Know that I’m not singling you guys out, and in fact, if you have commented on this blog, I have checked out your website and I like you. Yes, every single one of you.

But the fact is, if you are a newbie freelance writer, there is one question you need to ask yourself before you proceed any further down the path of a successful freelance writing business. And that question is:

Can I write?

Sure, freelance writing is about scoring clients, managing time, coping with solitude, and getting kickass testimonials from clients, but first and foremost it is about offering a marketable skill, and that skill, my friends, is writing.

If you can’t write, then you have no business being a freelance writer. Would you set up shop as a graphic designer if you had no idea how to design? Or as a stockbroker if you had no idea how to trade stocks? (Ouch. Okay, so in light of recent events that one was a bad example.)

But truly, the same goes for freelance writing. If you don’t know a predicate from an adverb, have never heard the phrase “show don’t tell” and haven’t written a single word except web chat since leaving school, then freelance writing probably isn’t for you.

Here’s an example. Someone once asked me to look over his novel. I kid you not, this book originated when its “author” read his first book since college, a weighty tome by one of our famous American White Male Scribes, and then decided, “Hey, if he can write a book, so can I.” That was my first clue.

My second clue came when the first sentence of the “novel” ran for an entire paragraph. “I wanted to slap the reader in the face from the first sentence,” said the “author” when I called him on the crime.

Let’s just say that I certainly did feel slapped in the face.

The lesson here is that that guy couldn’t write. I won’t say that he couldn’t learn to write or that with practice, he wouldn’t get quite good at it, but he did not know the conventions of writing. And not in the I’m-so-cool-I’m-throwing-the-conventions-of-writing-out-the-window way. To throw the conventions of writing out the window, you have to know what they are in the first place.

If you are a freelance writer, your writing skills should be the last thing you worry about. Writing is the thing you should be confident about. It’s what you DO. All that marketing and billing and networking stuff can scare the socks off you, but if you are unsure of your writing skills, then maybe this business isn’t for you, kid.

(Have you ever read a blog post with a chastising tone and come away thinking it’s meant for you? Well, if you are taking the time to seek this blog out from the depths of the internet, chances are it isn’t aimed at you. The people who need the talking to I just threw down wouldn’t even bother coming over here. It’s like I’m shouting this out the porthole of the space station. Truly.)

For more like this:

Why a Reputable Freelance Writer Will Never Do You Homework (So Stop Asking)

Aspiring to the 9th Grade Level, or How Simple Language Will Reclaim our Knowledge

What would William Strunk do?