This week, meet writer Cathleen V from Stotts City, MO! Check out our blog every Wednesday for a new interview with our super talented and very interesting WriterAccess writers. For more featured writers, visit our Writer Wednesday category.
According to your profile, you have a lot of experience with science and agriculture! What made you turn to freelance writing as a career?
After I finished my master’s degree, I looked at several opportunities around the area, but in the end decided I still liked the freedom that running my own business gave me. Because of online platforms for freelance writing such as WriterAccess, I was able to go on a couple vacations this year and take my work with me. If I’d taken any of the other positions I’d been considering, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy a couple weeks out west this fall and a week in Florida just after Christmas. Freelance writing gives me the freedom to write about my agricultural and scientific passions without having to give up a free schedule.
Tell us a bit about what it’s like to live on a hobby farm. Have you always lived on a farm, or was this a decision you made after studying agriculture and plant science?
I love life on our farm, especially in the spring and fall. My grandparents on both sides lived on farms, and I always loved playing in the barn and spoiling the animals there. Right after my husband and I married, we received notice that the place we were living in was being bulldozed for new construction. We decided to try homesteading and spent six of the first seven months of our marriage camping without significant running water or electricity—let me tell you, if a marriage will survive that, it’ll survive anything! Though it was rough, we really loved being in touch with nature. After our daughter was born and I went back to school, we’d been talking about doing more farming, so I pursued agriculture as my major.
Between medieval reenactments, search and rescue operations, and management of your small business, how on earth do you find time to write so prolifically?!
It helps that I have chronic insomnia. 😉 In truth, I don’t think I could do anything else. I’m a natural storyteller and I love to tell the stories of businesses, individuals, interest groups and events. I’m also not very good at doing nothing, so I always have something going on.
It sounds like you’ve started quite a few small businesses. As an entrepreneurial spirit, do you have ideas for anything new down the road?
I really like the idea of building residual income, so I’m working on putting together some ebooks dealing with small business marketing, art show display design and marketing and small farm management. My husband is working on becoming a certified emergency manager, and we’re thinking about starting a business creating emergency and disaster plans for businesses and organizations.
What advice would you like to impart to our other writers?
Never stop learning and never stop reaching. The biggest thing that gets in our way is our own self-doubt. Be willing to take a chance on something just a little bit out of your comfort zone and by the time you’re done, you’ll realize you’ve grown that much more as a writer and as an individual.
Cathleen V is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
Louis Roe is a content marketing intern at WriterAccess. Contact Louis on Twitter @lojoroe or by email Louis.Roe (at) WriterAccess.com.
