When I first started writing for a living online, I really had no idea what I was doing. I was naïve, and I was uncertain of my chances, but I was compelled to try anyway. It was either try to earn some money with my writing, or get a regular job somewhere and never have the time to do any writing at all. I’d done that before, didn’t like the idea of going down that road again. For me, and probably many other writers out there, not writing is pretty much the same as going insane. The words are always there, and putting them to paper is the only way to get any peace.

So, the first thing I did was gather up some of my long forgotten works, clean them up a bit, and send them on their way to earn me fortune and fame. Ha! The ones that bothered to come back at all came with their tails between their legs. REJECTED. The others just disappeared into cyber space, where they were probably sent straight into spam obscurity.

The second thing that I did was to pay actual money for “Work from Home” software. Again, I know better now. The program seemed pretty cool, to newbie me. It looked up jobs for me, and told me places to submit my resume, and had all sorts of other bells and whistles that seemed snazzy to me. How was I to know that there were millions of places that would list millions of other jobs, and sites that would even write my resume for me if I wanted? I’m telling you, I was young, that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

I made mistakes, common beginner mistakes, but I learned, sometimes slowly, and sometimes pretty quick (losing money will speed the learning process). I did however win several cheesy “Editors Choice Awards” from Poetry.com. Yes, I am aware now that they are a big spammy scam site, but I will still occasionally send something to them, because any award hanging on my wall is going to perk up my ego.

Anyway, after my beginning failures and lessons learned, I discovered a place called Freelancewriting.com. It was just filled with writing jobs, resources, information, and even links to other writing sites. I loved it! It is still one of my favorite job sites, they don’t have the vast selection of opportunities that sites like Craigslist offer, but the jobs they do have are interesting and in the high paying section, the pay is pretty good.

It took me a while to figure out how navigate my way around the web, even now I still get lost on a regular basis. There are so many different types of freelance writing job sites, which can make finding the ones that are actually worthwhile a time consuming trip. You have to be very specific with your search words when you start looking, and make sure you bookmark the ones that you like, or you may never find them again. It is also a good idea to subscribe to email notices if the site offers that.

These are just a few of the sites that offer the best variety of job listings; they pull the listings from the web for you, and mostly just the good ones too.

http://corecreativegroup.com

http://www.themusepub.blogspot.com

http://chasingthemuse.blogdrive.com

http://www.2work-at-home.com

http://telecommuting-writing-jobs.com

These are good places to start your search; each site offers other useful information for writers too. And links to other places to look.

Well, that’s it for this week kids, I hope that you found something of value in this article, even if it was just a good laugh.