My fiancee and I live in Eugene, Oregon, where we do a lot of cooking, brew beer, and ride our sidecar motorcycle.

All you have to do now is get out there and start pitching why you’re the best choice – even if you don’t have experience

I’m interested in proofreading and editing as well. Hard to get jobs, mostly you have to have 3+ years of experience. Where do you get the 3 years to start with??

Thanks, and I really like this thread.

Very interesting post and I am very sorry to hear about the difficulties in your present job.

My advice to you would be to select a topic or a couple of topics that you would be interested in writing about.

Then – get experience/writing clips in these areas by working for lower paying gigs or by volunteering.

Then start applying to higher paying gigs or querying to publications – once you have this experience.

Many publications and businesses want to see applicable experience soooo this may help you out a bit!

I believe other sites such as about.com and aboutfreelancewriting.com may have helpful info as well for you.

I’m one of those “lost souls” in the freelance writing world: I have NO clue where to go or how to get started, but at least I feel more optimistic since finding this site a few months ago!

I’ve been writing since I was three–no joking. Started with pencils and crayons, then typewriters, then electric typewriters, and now computers. Most of it being fantasy/sci-fi-based fiction with some slice-of-life writing, and I even won local awards for my writing while in grade school and university. I majored in English and psychology, which means I have FAR more experience in writing research papers than I like to admit. XD I ramble-blog (ramblog?) on a daily basis about Life, the Universe, and Everything, via LiveJournal.

Unfortunately, my lifetime hobby of writing doesn’t seem to be too helpful when I look for jobs just yet. Seems like everyone wants someone who’s specifically edited THIS kind of writing or written about THAT topic, and I have so many interests to expand my knowledge on, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert in any one thing!

I HAVE to do this, though. I’ve always known writing is the only thing I can make a career of and still keep my sanity. Right now I’m working for the US Postal Service, and the physical damage to my body over the past three years has made it imperative I get outta there and start making money from my desk at home ASAP. So while I may be lost and confused about how to do this thing, I’m not giving up!

Man, everything I write gets a lot longer than I mean for it be. I guess that’s how you know I’m a writer.

I love manga! I didn’t know that a non-Japanese speaker could get into that field. I’m glad to hear of your experiences, because it gives me ideas for using my education. It also gives me something to tell the parents when they become skeptical of my education choices

Thanks for the warning on the online work! I may have to use it to get my feet wet, though >.

I was an exchange student in high school and speak fluent German. I saw a craigslist ad for a children’s book translation and have been doing it off and on ever since…I landed an awesome gig when a friend who is an editor at a manga publisher got me a job doing localization editing for a German comic book. I had some suggestions on translation and they gave me the rest of the translation work for the series! Warning, though: the translation work I have found online pays QUITE poorly in general. I’d have to say it makes up a quite minimal part of my income.