My work history is one of my biggest assets as a writer. In my time in the professional world I have written and edited news pieces, sold cell phones for a major US wireless carrier, performed data entry tasks, interviewed clients for publications and records-keeping... the list goes on. As a freelancer (my current full-time job), I've made it a point to take as varied a list of assignments as possible, a practice that has expanded my "voice" and helped me establish an ever-growing list of tech industry contacts.

Writing -- especially content creation -- is an interesting career path in that it requires a 50/50 split between technical and creative skillsets. Throw in so-called "secondary" tasks like interviewing, personal marketing, client communications, etc., and you have a field that truly requires a Jack-of-all-trades mentality to survive.

That's just as true when it comes time to sit at the keyboard and perform my primary job function: Creating words fit to represent my clients. Whatever the job, the first three steps are always the same... research, research, research. From there, I like to write a first draft, sit on it for hours or days (depending on time constraints), then revisit it with a set of fresh eyes. After that, it's off to the client. That leads me to....

Is this more suited to a blog post? Maybe, but I think it's important enough to mention here. In short: There is no improvement without criticism. Part of being a pro is knowing what advice to take and what advice to ignore. When I'm being paid to produce content, there's a lot more of the former than the latter.

Having worked in many collaborative environments, I've seen plenty of hot-shot freelancers who balk at the idea of rewrites and approach re-dos in general as a pain or problem to deal with. That, in my opinion, is a poisonous attitude to have in any field. I take every comment (positive or otherwise) and try to apply it to every subsequent piece I produce for a client -- and I'm guessing that's a big reason why I'm often asked to come back!