Freelancing in and of itself is a good, even a great way to work. You can make your own hours, decide on your own prices and rates, only do the projects that you like, generally rule your own world. Unfortunately there are limitations to what you can do.
In a perfect world, a freelancer would get an email from a client offering them work. The freelancer and client would email, phone, or message to get to the nuts and bolts of the project. After the specifics of the project were laid out a rate would be set and the client could accept, decline, or counter-offer. After arriving at an agreement, the freelancer would get to work knowing exactly what was expected, the deadline, and the approximate hours it would take to finish. Project finished, payment accepted, another feather in the cap.
Unfortunately this is not usually the route for the new, and usually, the experienced freelancer. To be a freelancer now you must have a website, and even then it is very difficult to get anyone to know you exist in the vast world of the internet. There are so many different aspects to think about aside from you usual specialty. Marketing tools such as website design, page ratings, and advertising take up so much of your time you think more than once a day you may give it all up. If this is not enough, enter the Bidding. The bidding does several things for you, it gives you a chance to post your profile on lots of sites, it allows you to spend several hours per day bidding on projects, it affords you the freedom to bid as low as you can, most of all it gives you the chance to spend lots of money and time advertising yourself, only to be underbid by someone by pennies on the dollar. I do not mean to imply that bidding sites are all bad. If you are already established, and you do not need the jobs in order to pay your bills or to eat, then bidding sites are the way to go. You will get a couple of jobs here and there by bidding. But in my opinion the time spent putting in the bids is money lost and it all evens out in the end.
Back in the perfect world you are going out to eat or to a movie, not looking for jobs until 2 a.m. You can manage your time because you know what jobs you will be working on, not worrying about what will happen if two of your bids come in at the same time and you cannot take them both. In my opinion your time is better spent listing yourself on sites that do not require bidding and marketing yourself in other ways, such as search engine optimization, article submission, blogging, and others.
Freelancing can be just what you want it to be, it takes a little time, a little money, and tons of ambition.