Writing for Others (Essay Sample)

Paper 1 final draft
Writing for others
I knew little about professional writing until my friend enlightened me. Having seen some of my articles I had written in class, she was sure I would suit this field. However, for me there was more to do, to be a professional writer. Unlike my friend, I had not graduated. Hence, I did not have a degree that was apparently a primary requirement to be a professional writer. Besides, I wrote my essays entirely for class work and not as professional writing, there is a little to learn to write for other people like magazines, daily columns and blogs.
I am lucky that my friend Lillian was a writer, so I did not have to possess a degree to be a professional writer. She had written for some time until recently she opened a writing firm. She writes for clients from all over the world. Therefore, since I could not open my firm, I will be her assistant writer. With this, I knew she could cater for my training needs. Having her as my trainer, I knew that soon my language troubles were to be over.
Starting as a professional writer was not easy. I had to study various writing and formatting styles. Writing in class was entirely different because we rarely used any writing styles as most of our essays were handwritten and freestyle. Therefore, I needed much help and support from my friend especially in learning because, in professional writing all the work needed typing skills, which one had to learn afresh. With my computer skills intact, I started learning about various referencing and in-text citation methods. Initially, it was hard to learn these formats, as they were many and hard to differentiate. However, with time I could do the whole paper using The American Psychological Association format without referring to the manual. The Modern Languages Association format became my companion when it came to writing.
 Apart from learning the writing formats, as a writer I needed to know how to use various tools used by writers. This included referencing tools like Zotero, a tool used to do in the in-text citation. Besides, I had to learn how to utilize various search engines to gather adequate information for my write-ups especially those that needed sources. In addition, familiarization with language imperative English language was necessary. This entailed knowing the American English, and those versions spoken in other countries. This is because as a writer, sometimes you do not get to choose the country of origin of the articles you write. With the world becoming global with Internet connectivity, people from all over the world can be your customers. It would be a shame to decline a task just because you cannot learn the minor difference in English versions.
With all this knowledge, a writer has a variety of areas to write, however to be effective I made choices of my areas of interest. Being a student with a focus, I could not afford to be a general writer like my friend Lillian. However, sometimes as a writer making a choice was hard as customers could request for to write for them. When I started writing, I would write on anything, which made me have regular customers. However, with time I realized most of those I wrote for were more satisfied with the literature papers than any other papers hence I concentrated more on literature not only because I had passion in it, but also I liked dealing with multicultural literature. The fact that my customers complemented my literature more acted as a motivating factor.
Whereas, as an assistant writer, I have left my customers satisfied, I have also accrued many benefits. As a starter, my language was inadequate, with time I have noted improvement in my performance in English and literature. Even though this cannot be entirely as an attribution of being a writer, to some extent it is the writing and language use that led me there. Secondly, it has been fun to study and interact with most of my customers. As a student, writing has deeply enhanced my practice and use of language. This is because; writing gives me freedom on what to write and how to express my views in the simplest method. Therefore, I have control over the language I use. Besides, for most of the articles, I have autonomy on what to write.  Even though the owners choose the topic and give the direction, I possess the freedom of the choice of words I employ. This has enabled me to develop good language skills.
Similarly, I have developed better communication skills. As a writer, I have to communicate with those I write for on a regular basis. Contact by phone was not possible for almost all the people I wrote for, hence I had to communicate via emails and portal chats. This has enhanced my communication skills especially on negotiation skills and courteous conversations. However, it has been so easy to get all people to accept with me, to a certain degree, most of those I write for are satisfied with my communication skills. Besides, it has improved my communication skills with my supervisor and the few writers.
In addition, writing has exposed me to a variety of cultural background. For example, I have come to learn about the barbaric African culture of female genital mutilation common among the Maasai of Kenya. This has resulted to increase in the knowledge based on these cultures more than I did previously enabling me to understand the reason behind many cultural practices. Today I can just describe culture by the mention of the few principal components. Finally, writing has been my source of financial support. Not many people can...