on Aliventures site:

Are you thinking about freelancing?

I’ve known a lot of writers who spent quite a while in the “thinking” stage without moving forward.

It’s very understandable. Launching a freelancing career can feel like an enormous step, and you probably want to get everything right before you begin.

I was lucky, in a lot of ways: I fell into freelance writing by accident. Ten years ago, I wrote a guest post for a blog that (unknown to me) happened to be looking for paid writers. The editor asked if I’d like to join the team … and that was the first of many, many freelance blogging gigs.

At that point, I was working a day job in London. In terms of freelancing, I had nothing set up. I had a blog, but it wasn’t writing-related at all. I was still using my old email address (provided by my university’s alumni team). I only had a personal PayPal account that I used for eBay. I definitely hadn’t thought about anything like contracts or a business plan.

And it still all worked out fine!

Even so, I probably would’ve made slightly faster progress as a freelancer if I’d got a few things set up before I began.