is there any truth freelance writing

Making a living freelance writing? sure, but it may not be all article writing. Might be writing PR stuff for companies, brochures for businesses, etc. you have to be creative. Writing gigs for $1-$4/word take years to find and cultivate.

Making money blogging is a different animal. It's possible, but you really have to know what you're doing. It's not something that's going to happen in one day.

Freelance writing = submitting frequent stories to online / irl publications? Not really.

Freelance writing = copywriting, proactively querying magazines for articles you can write they might like, plus anything else from SEO to blog writing? Feasible.

Freelance writing can be a tough world to crack and you can spend a long time chasing up leads and establishing yourself. The majority of freelance writers I know (who aren't journalists) make their money via copywriting - writing press releases, brochures, PR materials etc. However, increasingly agencies and companies are looking for copywriters who have qualifications or experience, and so it can be quite hard to break into.

Freelance writing is probably the most common way writers earn a living. For every fiction market, there are hundreds of nonfiction markets, and the great majority are open to freelance writers.

The thing about freelance writing is that you have to be productive, and you have to be versatile. The ability to come up with ideas, several of them, each week, and to write good queries, is a must.

But, sure, freelance writing is a viable career path.

I wrote for RPG companies for 3 years (freelance). 4 cents a word starting and 5 cents a word once I learned how to write technical information like item/spell/character stats.

It may start small, but if you establish yourself as a good writer who can follow a formula AND who can turn assignments in on time, you could do okay for yourself. I made around 25k a year doing that, but you have to be willing to write every single day, 1000-2000 words (FINAL words--edited, polished, etc.)

I earn my living freelance blogging. I've gone from being a regular contributor on a variety of web design blogs to being editor at three of the most popular design blogs out there (I'm still editing for one). I earn mid-five figures, but don't work 40 hours a week most weeks.

Granted, when I started blogging professionally, it was a lot easier to break into the big blogs (my first paid gig was at Mashable, which now gets over 25 million visitors a month). But some of them are still very open to inexperienced contributors and once you've had a popular article on one major site, you'll find that a lot of doors open for you.

I think it is 100 percent possible to earn a living as a freelancer. I did it for years only writing articles and nothing else. The key is to pitch a lot of stories. Pitch more than one a day. Once things get rolling, treasure your relationships with editors so you can write for them again or regularly. Being a freelance writer should feel like a full time job from the pitching alone. If it doesn't, there is more you can be doing. It is tough in the beginning, but, like I said, 100 percent possible.