Year after year, I declare that I’m going to “break into magazines” and “get out of online content writing”… and year after year, I fail to follow through. I took a course through Writer’s Digest once on writing for magazines, but nothing really came of it (and the course wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped, in the end).

I’ve resolved once again to at least make the attempt to break away from content writing, and the active step I’ve taken to push me into it is this: I signed up for a course offered by WOW! Women on Writing and run by Nicole LaMarco, a successful freelance writer.

I’ve never taken a course through WOW! before, so I’m not entirely sure what to expect… but for a 10-week course, the price was right (especially when compared to the cost of some of the 4 or 6 week classes).

The course is called: Get Paid to Write: Become a Freelance Writer! and it starts from the very beginning and pushes you all the way through to actually applying for jobs (that’s the assignment in week 6… yikes!) and establishing your portfolio.

Here’s the weekly breakdown given in the course description:

• Week 1: Freelance Writing Basics
• Week 2: How to Choose a Writing Niche
• Week 3: Building Your Writing Portfolio
• Week 4: How to Create a Writing Resume
• Week 5: How to Query and Submit to Publications
• Week 6: Applying for and Landing Jobs
• Week 7: How to Make Money Writing
• Week 8: Bookkeeping Basics for Writers
• Week 9: Writing Resources
• Week 10: You’re a Writer!

Weeks one and two should be fairly easy… I’ve already got both of those down, but it’s the weeks afterward that should be incredibly valuable. As long as I stay on top of the work, by the end of week 10, I’ll have begun the process of being a freelance writer who actually gets bylines for her work (online writing is a b!#@& that way) and I’ll hopefully kiss goodbye sites like Elance and RentaCoder forever.

So… anyone want to join me? Class starts Sept. 27th!

And if freelance writing isn’t really your ‘thing’, is there anything you keep telling yourself you’ll ‘get into’ someday but haven’t got around to it yet? Maybe scriptwriting? Writing grants? Learning a new language?