From Loolwa Khazzoom,

You get paid to write! As if that’s not enough, there are a bunch o’ extra perks to being a freelance writer — from rubbing elbows with kewl cats, to working at your favorite café while sipping lattés. Here are some of the top advantages to a freelance writing career.

1) Be Your Own Boss

Get ready to belt out, “Take this job and shove it!” to anyone anytime anywhere. As a freelance writer, you choose with whom to work, when to work, and on which stories to work.

2) Set Your Own Schedule

While there may be certain factors to take into consideration, like when editors are on the clock in New York, you decide when your work day begins and ends. This flexibility is especially great for parents of tiny tots, people with disabilities, and aspiring rock stars.

3) Work Wherever You Want

In the age of laptop computers and wireless internet, your virtual office can be at an outdoor café on the French Riviera, under the covers of your warm, fluffy bed, or on a spaceship to the moon (um, wait, do they really have wireless?)

4) Get Paid to Have Fun

Speaking of the French Riviera, if you want to vacation in the south of France, be sure to get paid for it and take it off your taxes as a business expense: Secure assignments for stories on the best spas along the coast, the coolest bike paths down to Italy, or the hippest restaurants in Nice. Added bonus: You get intimately acquainted with locals who otherwise might not look your way. Oh yeah, and the article fee can pay for that French massage.

5) Meet Cool People

Speaking of getting acquainted, know that movie actor you’re pining after? If you come up with the right spin, hook, and pitch, you just might nail an in-person interview with your celebrity crush. (Um, oh yeah, and you can meet heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, yada yada yada.)

6) Gain Access

On assignment, you can enter into a “do not enter” zone. In war-torn countries, for example, citizens cannot cross over borders, but journalists can.

7) Have a Platform

Here’s a favorite perk of being a freelancer: When you feel the need to speak up about something, you can, in many different ways — including first-person stories, as-told-to pieces, and straight-out reported fare. What’s more, up to millions of people will be listening as you pontificate. How cool is that?!

8) Learn Lots O’Stuff

Freelancing rocks for those with short attention spans! As a writer, you can dabble in business, health, fashion, music, sports, and lots more. If you get super-duper into one particular topic, you can write about it obsessively — even become a recognized expert on it — but still move on whenever you get bored.