Earlier this year, I attended a WAHM (work-at-home mom) workshop, which had breakout sessions on freelance writing and virtual assistance. Because I wanted to further my career as a freelance writer, I attended the writing session. I learned so much from that workshop that it inspired me to create a list of my freelance writing goals for the year.
It has been almost five months already since that day and so I revisited the list to see how far I’ve gone in terms of accomplishing my goals. I am so pleased to tell you that I have accomplished most of them already! Yay! So, what are my accomplishments exactly?
Well, my first goal was to Read, Read, Read. I have been able to read a lot during the past months. I’ve read blogs and websites of people whose writing styles I admire. The only thing I wasn’t able to do was to read one book every week. Not to make excuses but with my present schedule, it’s actually impossible. So, I just try to read one or two every month. Good enough, if you ask me.
I’ve also achieved my goal of educating myself more on writing. I’ve attended quite a few workshops already both physically and online. Also, I’ve achieved putting up my own professional website wherein I can showcase the work that I do. (Do visit www.janicetlim.com.) The only thing that I haven’t done is to go back to journal writing. That’s something I want to accomplish very soon.
I have to say though that my most favorite accomplishment is to finally be able to write for a parenting site. On my list of goals, I did not specify any particular site but I actually had only one in mind. It is the site of Smart Parenting magazine, www.smartparenting.com.ph. I just love the magazine. I buy an issue every month. I did not mention it on my list, though, because I thought “What if I wasn’t able to accomplish it”? People would know that Smart Parenting rejected me. Yikes! So, I opted to leave that detail out. Haha!
But I did apply just a few days after writing that list, with a lot of encouragement (and a recommendation) from fellow WAHMs who were already writing for SP online then. It took a while before I got a response. It took four whole months! I was actually beginning to think that they didn’t want me. But it turns out that they did! The Managing Editor finally emailed me with a couple of writing assignments during the last week of May. She asked if was interested. Damn right, I was! I was so thrilled!!! It was really a DREAM COME TRUE!
Of course, I did my best with my first couple of articles. I had to interview people. Wow! It really felt like I leveled up already. Haha! I still can’t get over the feeling. So, with much anticipation, I waited for my articles to finally be published. They couldn’t give me a definite date, just that it will come out in June. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out today that my first article is now live on the site. Yay!!! Here’s a screenshot of it.
I hope you guys will read the article. I worked hard on it. 🙂 Did you see my name? Haha! Happy dance! 🙂
This is only the start of something good. I can feel it in my bones! 🙂 I am looking forward to writing more articles for SP online. Who knows? Maybe next year I can transition to writing for the magazine itself. That would be another dream come true too! That’s my new goal. Maybe I’m dreaming again. But that’s what you do when you’ve already accomplished a goal – aim for a new one. But for now, I’m super happy with this blessing. I am so blessed. God is so AMAZING!
