📣 Call for Pitches: “The Moment I Knew I Had to Make Writing My Job”

💰 $1/word | 500 words | Published on the GuestStack column here at ✍️ Make Writing Your Job

You know the moment.

Maybe it was staring down your 86th rejected job application.

Maybe it was your boss calling you “chatty” in a Zoom performance review.

Maybe it was after your first paid piece — $200 to write about composting toilets, and suddenly? You believed.

We’re looking for personal essays about that electric, uncomfortable, defiant, or joyful moment when you realized:

I’m not doing this anymore. I’m going to be a writer.

Whether you’ve built a six-figure freelance business or are still chasing your first byline, we want the real story of how you crossed the threshold. Not the polished version — the messy, mundane, magnificent truth.

What we want:

• Pitches for personal essays (that upon selection, the chosen writer will write a 500-word essay) with voice, insight, and tension

• Stories rooted in your writing or freelancing life

• A-ha moments that feel universal and yet intensely personal (specific details > vague platitudes)

• Pieces that teach us something, not just tell us something

What we pay:

💸 $500 flat ($1/word for 500 words)

✨ PLUS: Publication to an audience of 9,000+ subscribers here on ✍️ Make Writing Your Job.