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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.