What's a Professional Writer Anyway?
Think you need a fancy degree or certificate to be a professional writer? Read on…
Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash
My business partner and medical writer extraordinaire, Jennifer Gregg, has a funny blurb on her website:
I reproduce it here because she succinctly describes what a good professional writer is.
It’s the writer whose work product advances the goals of his or her clients. Be it through writing copy, white papers, or CME programs - you put into words the information that your client wants to deliver to its audience.
For people who come to freelance writing from other careers, it can often seem like they’re “less than” because they don’t have the right degree.
Especially for those of us with technical backgrounds like clinical medicine or bench science, the lack of formal training feels like a legitimate reason to hold off and not start our writing careers.
We view formal education as essential because it’s our default mode. We grew up in a system where the only acceptable way to expertise was through formal education. After all, no one is going to let you touch a live patient without going to school, and no one is going to entrust an expensive gas chromatographer to you if you don’t have the training to use it.
But in the process, many of us make two critical mistakes in our thinking that keeps us on the sidelines far too long.
First, we discount the innate learning that we are all exposed to. Reading fiction and nonfiction books counts as training for writing. Reading articles and noticing that they’re dense and unreadable counts, too. Learning to explain complex concepts to lay people is fantastic prep for a writing career. And so is writing department-wide emails that build consensus for a new program or a new way of doing things.
Second, we elevate formal education above real-life experience. But writing, like any craft, can only be learned by doing. Specifically, writing for other people, on deadline, in a style they want, is something you will only learn when it counts - when it’s not a drill.
All this is not to say that courses on the proper use of grammar or writing a particular type of grant are not extremely useful. They are.
But it is critical to understand that no number of courses and books will make you feel ready. If you’re relying on these props to give you courage, you’ll be spending an awful lot of time and money without finding the feeling you want.
Courage and confidence come from taking the plunge, doing the work, making mistakes and learning from them, and getting better and better in the process.
So, the next time you see an opportunity, raise your hand and say, “yes, I can write that for you.”
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If you’re a practicing clinician who’s interested in freelance medical writing practice or have recently transitioned to freelance medical writing, we’d love to help guide you in this new and exciting journey. We welcome you to join our focused 90-day group coaching session that starts in a few weeks.