Photo by Luke Lung on Unsplash

2022 has been a year of lessons and development as a writer. As my freelance career began to take a more solid shape, I began to learn lessons that helped me grow. Any writer will tell you this art form is something no one will perfect. We are all constantly growing and changing as writers with each project we work on. Here are 3 lessons I learned while working as a writer in 2022.

Don't Be Afraid To Say No

As my audience grew and my blog gained more traction, I began to receive emails from individuals wanting to post guest articles on my site. Apart from not sharing samples of their work, I had no idea what they even knew about hemp or marijuana. The emails usually seemed like they had been copied and pasted at least a dozen times, and were not personal at all.

Something I had been working on all of 2022 was setting boundaries, and this filtered into my blog. I crafted a response that was professional and polite, saying that I was not accepting guest articles at this time. Saying no is hard for many of us, but setting boundaries is an important part of being a freelancer.

Value Your Worth

When I first began professionally writing, the imposter syndrome hit me hard. And as a result, I began to undervalue my work. As I gained confidence and built out my portfolio, I began to establish an outline for my pricing.

Confidence can come from practice, and no freelancer should ever feel shame about charging what they feel they are worth.

Be Prepared For Critics

Once you begin to gain enough traction as a writer, the critics come out of the woodwork. How you respond will help shape how you grow as a writer and interact with your readers. I personally read and analyze the criticism before responding. Is this a professional in the industry who knows what they are talking about? Or is this just someone who has nothing better to do with their time than to stir up drama online?

If the latter, I prefer to ignore and possibly delete the comment. After all, we had bigger fish to fry in 2022 than mean comments on the internet.

These lessons helped me grow as a writer and will continue to help me grow as we enter 2023. And as we wrap up 2022, we can only look forward to the adventures the new year will bring.