Writer's Insight: Queensie Ellimms

Queensie Ellimms on the challenges of a writing career that spans academia, journalism, and more.

About Queensie

Queensie Ellimms is a writer and student. She writes across various forms including academic, web content, blogs and creative writing, among others, having also been published by literary magazines.

You can find Queensie on X (formerly Twitter) at @drow_een or on LinkedIn as Queensie Ellimms.

What kind of writing fills your day-to-day schedule?

Although I like to see myself as a creative of sorts, someone who is deeply into the art of writing for the sole purpose of creating phenomenal work, I have found that this is not often my reality. On an average day, you are more likely to find me hunched over my system in a questionable posture staring intently at research papers, in hopes of stumbling upon relevant information that I can use for the academic essay I’m writing.

On other days, you’ll find me begrudgingly reading informative pieces for one magazine article or the other that I’m trying hard to string words together for. Writing magazine articles and features and profiles has been the most interesting part of my work as a writer recently. It’s incredibly challenging but fun because I get the opportunity to write on relevant topics, profile musicians, and all sorts! I simply enjoy the opportunity to do this stuff, it doesn’t make me feel as though I am selling my soul for a few bucks.

How have you managed to juggle freelancing alongside being a student or another day job?

As you may have surmised, I write a lot. The process of writing on its own is already quite challenging, but imagine doing all of that as a student who often has to attend 6-8 hours of classes daily. Except you’re a pro who has it all figured out, I think it’s crazy to be trying to combine that and writing commercially. Some freelancers happen to be freelancers due to the fact that they are unable to find stable well-paying jobs, but I guarantee you that an even greater percentage of us work as freelancers because we have day-time jobs or schools to go to or just some other engagement of sorts that takes up the bulk of our time. A lot of freelancers get burnt out in the process of trying to juggle their responsibilities and still make money on the side. This has happened to me so many times, but this is not optimal for your well-being as a writer.

Due to my wealth of experience in getting burnt out, I have worked on devising various means by which I now try to seamlessly juggle freelancing and being a student. I listen intently to my body, for one. When I need a rest, I take breaks because frankly, if I go out of commission due to a health-related issue, life and work will go on.

How do you prioritise time management while balancing different responsibilities?

I’m really big on effective time management and meeting deadlines. If I dare say so myself, that’s one of my greatest selling points. I never miss deadlines, no matter how hard meeting them might be. To achieve this work rate, I sometimes prioritise work over sleep, over certain classes and over breaks but not in extremes. Something else that I do is to divide the bulk of my months into work periods and lock-in periods for school. I may not appear studious at the beginning of the school semester but trust that I’m serious behind the scenes and preparing to stop work and focus on studying when it’s exam month.

While being a student, I also happen to be a volunteer for a number of organisations, research assistant for a graduate student, among many other things. The point is that I always have a lot to do and a lot of responsibilities, people expect me to show up when I ought to and this requires me to ensure that I am mindful of my time. To stay on top of my time, I use a to-do list at all times and prioritise my tasks in their order of importance. From urgent to important to not-urgent and not-important tasks.

How has working on a diverse range of projects - from academic writing to creative - shaped your overall approach to freelancing?

In the past few years, I’ve gone from being a creative writer [of fantasy, romance books] to being an academic writer [writing essays, literature reviews] to being a journalistic writer [publishing articles on websites] to being a content writer [marketing content for clients on IG, LinkedIn etc] to writing blog posts. The point is that I’ve worked on various projects that have taught me different things about the different types of writing and what I should typically expect from clients in these different fields. Most especially in terms of payment, bear in mind that my views are completely subjective and based on my experience.