Tips for Authors
Writing With Confidence - Unlock Your Potential
Author: Angela Booth
The biggest bugbear for new freelance writers, and for some
established ones too, is a lack of confidence.
Are you a confident
writer? A confident writer knows his words have value, and enjoys writing. He
also knows that since there are unlimited markets for his words, any rejections
are just feedback, and blithely submits his words elsewhere.
When
you lack confidence you:
* Procrastinate, because you're unsure of
yourself;
* Charge less than you're worth - you overestimate each
project, and underestimate your own resources and skills;
* Trash
your intuition (your creativity). A confident writer has formed a writing habit
which is a partnership with his creativity, and he trusts the words will be
there when he needs them. And, magically, they are. Trusting yourself is a big
part of being a confident writer;
* Get stuck in writing ruts.
You're nervous about writing anything which is new to you. You write for
publications way below your skill level, because you lack the confidence to move
out of your comfort zone.
Let's try a little experiment. Rate your
confidence as a writer on a scale from one to ten. One is Extreme Lack of
Confidence, and ten is Highly Confident.
Write down the number,
and today's date. Then follow the program below to become extremely confident
about your writing within a month.
How to Get Confident in a 30
Days or Less
There's a simple program which I've recommended to
many writers, because it once worked for me, many years ago. It works for
everyone who follows the program.
Here it is.
Write
an article a day, and publish your article.
Yes, that's all there
is to the program. It works, because before the month is over, you'll have
shifted your focus from thinking about the effects of writing (where you are
now) to WRITING itself. Put another way, you will have changed your mental focus
from thinking to doing.
When you're writing, your thoughts are
about writing. They're either focused on what you're currently writing, or
they're focused on finding ideas and finding markets. This is the mark of a
confident writer: eagerness to WRITE.
So write an article a day,
of 400 to 800 words. Your articles can be about anything you choose.
Now, let's talk about publication. If you're writing for
magazines, or want to, then write a magazine query for the article you're
writing each day, and send it off to a magazine on the same day. Add this to
your cover letter: "Many thanks for your consideration. I'll assume that this
article is not for you if I don't hear from you within a week."
Keep records. Note down the article's title, and where you sent
it. Fourteen days after you send off the query for an article, send it somewhere
else. You've informed the first editor that that's what you're doing, so do it.
If you want to write for the Web rather than print publications,
you have a choice.
You can submit your articles to Web sites,
using the query method as you'd use for magazines. Or, you can publish your
articles on a blog, or you can collect your articles into packages of ten, and
sell them on your Web site. If you're selling packages, all articles in a
package should be on the same topic; weight loss, for example, or parenting, or
- any topic you choose.
So, rate your confidence on a scale of one
to ten. Then, write an article a day, and publish your article. Continue for 30
days. Rate yourself again. You'll be at TEN on the confidence scale, I promise
you.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/writing-with-confidence-unlock-your-potential-423183.html
About the Author:
Want to write more ? Angela Booth's
writing class, "Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A
Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process" is based on lessons she developed for her
private coaching students. Her ebook "Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write
More" shows you how to end procrastination for good and write more.



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