What Do You Do When The Writing Work Well Runs Dry?

Sometimes we bite off way more than we can chew with writing work and sometimes we leave ourselves too much room. I found myself in a pickle recently because I was given an assignment of 150-250 articles weekly for three months to keep myself and a good portion of my writing team busy. So I planned for it and as a result, didn't put forth much effort to keep bringing new work possibilities in as I normally would. The project was large and challenging and had a bumpy start but smoothed out within a few weeks and then things were smooth sailing.

But then suddenly the client put everything on hold.

At first it was ok because we all got a chance to catch our breath. It had been a roller coaster of a few weeks so it was nice to catch a breath. But after a few weeks it got a bit nerve-wracking. I got a bit panicked. We'd all left big gaps in our schedule for this project and as a result there'd be gaps in our income as well.

What's a writer to do 6 weeks before Christmas when she thought her Christmas would be jolly because of a nice big project with a decent payout and now that's not happening? Add to the fact that the climate online right now is a bit eerie with all kinds of financial crises and people putting things on hold.

Writing Rescue Plan

Do you have a plan for if your well of work runs dry? Luckily, I do. I have a client that offers me an all I can write buffet at any time. If you can find yourself a client like this, it's wonderful.

Not all the work is fun and not all of it pays the rates I'm accustomed to but as a fall back plan I know that as long as I have this great relationship and the client has a profitable business I'm safe.

I've written in the past about not putting all your writing eggs in a single basket but sometimes things are outside your scope of control. Our big client is just waiting for some financing approvals to resume his project which was very aggressive but very expensive so it sounds like his bosses wanted to slow down and see if there were any fruits from our few weeks of labour before continuing. I do expect the project to resume but in the meanwhile at least we can all write---and eat.

If you can't find a client that can give you an almost unlimited amount of work, here are a few things you can do in a pinch:

Find Writing Work FAST

-Do a special writing offer on a popular webmaster or marketing forum. You can often get buyers when you throw a great deal together and make PayPal cash fast

-Visit Writer forums and see what they're talking about in terms of current potential clients hiring

-Post an ad on a forum or on free classified sites

-Do some marketing and self-promotion of your own writer's site

-Join sites like Bukisa, eHow, Helium, AC and others to build some passive income

-Start bidding on sites like eLance, getafreelancer and guru

It can be nerve-wracking and cause you to panic but the great thing about writing online is that endless opportunities continue to present themselves. You never know, you could find that due to one door closing, a better paying or more creative one opens.