My first attempt at writing

[Vivian Marshall]

I don't know about anyone else but my first writing assignment was discouraging even though I was excited to be given the assignment.  I was in my Junior year working toward a Bachelor's in Business, when the English professor assigned the class to write a descriptive paper on any topic of our choosing. I was so excited because I like writing and here was a chance to see what I can do.  Since my Dad grew up in Cades Cove, in the Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, I was certain I could write such a paper on describing the beauty of the park.  I wrote the paper and I felt that I had nailed the writing assignment.  However, when attempting to describe the mountains, I wrote, "the mountains were such a rich, deep, shade of blue, that in the distance the appeared to be purple".  Image my disappointment when my paper came back with red all over it saying that what I wrote was confusing.  I had thought I described the beauty of the mountains perfectly, apparently that was not the case.  My point is that writing is not something that you can typically hit a home run on the first time.  It takes practice.  Freelance writing is a great way to build writing skills and to share your interests with others.  AND it will be nice when if the article turns out to be one that pays.  So don't give up regardless of what the critics say--just take their comments, weigh them, use them if appropriate, and then let it go -- chances they can't write as well as you.

Has anyone else ad a similar experience with their first article?

[FWPMikeyDee]

This is a great topic. I've been in very similar situations. When I first started as a freelance writer, I had zero experience and barely any ability. I didn't really know proper grammar and my writing style was juvenile at best. A few of my first projects weren't as smooth as they could have been because of my lack of knowledge or understanding of the written word. I dealt with some pretty harsh rejections and critiques of my writing in those days. 

When I started on content mills, I remember struggling to stay in the upper echelons where the pay is at least somewhat reasonable. On Textbroker, I started out at 4 stars. After they rated my first 5 articles and saw how horrible I was about placing commas properly (TB editors have a real love affair with commas) they dropped me to 3 stars. That's when I realized how little I actually knew about grammar and started studying and practicing as much as possible. I went through the Textbroker University course to get back to a 4 star rating. I believe that helped me out a lot. While I don't write for content mills that much these days, I still think they are a great place for new writers to gain experience and hone their writing skill during the early part of a freelance career.