{"id":16837,"date":"2018-02-14T11:30:07","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T16:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdcontent.com\/blog\/?p=16837"},"modified":"2019-05-07T19:19:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T23:19:47","slug":"freelance-writers-build-not-burn-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crowdcontent.com\/blog\/writers-hub\/freelance-writers-build-not-burn-bridges\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Small World: Why Freelance Writers Should Build, Not Burn, Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Freelancing isn’t a modern invention. One of the earliest uses of the term comes from Sir Walter Scott’s 19th century work, Ivanhoe, and refers to hired mercenaries (or free lances<\/em>). Merriam-Webster<\/a> notes that the term came to mean a number of things, including, “a person who does any type of work on one’s own terms and without any permanent or long-term commitment to an employer.”<\/p>\n

I think that covers freelance writers and editors nicely, but I also believe we have to be careful not to let our mercenary roots be the only thing that leads us in this endeavor. It’s one thing to manage your time and efforts on your own terms; it’s another thing to burn bridges or muck up the waters in your area of the freelance lake.<\/p>\n

Because despite the fact that freelancing lets you work from anywhere in the world and take on clients from multiple countries, the industry itself is more like a lake than an ocean. That’s to say: it’s smaller than you think, and the chances of running into the same people (digitally or even in person) are larger than you might think.<\/p>\n