By James Patterson

In January, inevitably, gyms and Weight Watchers locations around the country fill their coffers with money from new members making yet another resolution to finally lose that weight. And, just as inevitably, most of those eager people will abandon their weight-loss goals once again and go back to their old habits.

I guess you could say I know a little bit about what it takes to lose weight. Between October of 2008 and May of 2009 I lost a total of 65 pounds, or almost 27 percent of my body weight. I trained for and ran a half marathon. I became a different person.

It’s no coincidence to me that, at the same time, I started my freelancing business. Looking back, almost all of the principles you have to understand to lose a significant amount of weight are the same ones necessary for developing a successful freelancing business. I want to talk about two of them here.

There’s No Secret….Well, Actually There Is

Friends and family who see me now notice my weight loss. When I tell them I’ve lost 65 pounds, I almost universally get asked “Well, what’s your secret?”

When I tell people I work from home, work 25 percent fewer hours and make 25 percent more money than I did in my old 9-to-5 job, I get the same question. “What’s your secret?”

The truth is, there’s no one magic secret that successful freelancers are holding back in order to hoard all the good clients.

When people ask me that universal question, I like to play a game with them. I say “Actually, I do have a secret. It’s a secret that most people don’t know about and fewer are actually willing to use.”

Their eyes get wide and they get curious, then I tell them the answer. “It takes lots of really, really, REALLY hard work. That’s the secret.”

It’s true. Whether it’s freelancing or losing weight, you have to work hard. Those who do, and persevere through the discouragement and the disappointment are the ones who have success.

Those who give up when the first prospect says no or give up when they can’t wake up early enough to go the gym are the ones who wonder why they can never build a successful freelancing career, or why they make the same New Year’s resolution every year to lose weight.

Team Up With People Who Support You

If there was one thing that made the difference between all the times I tried to lose weight and failed and this time when I succeeded, it was this. It was actually my wife who came up with the idea to sign up for a half marathon.

I thought she was crazy. I had never run more than a mile all at once since middle school. Now she wanted me to run 13.1? But there she was with me, every step of the way in the training, the sore feet, and there we were at the finish line together after we had both accomplished our goal.

We both lost a tremendous amount of weight and became regular runners. I couldn’t have done it without her.

If you’re trying to go it alone in the freelancing world, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to. Team up with someone who shares your goals.

Joining Carol’s freelance mentoring group was one of the best decisions I ever made and it’s had a direct impact on my bottom line. The support Carol and the group provides gives me the confidence I need to try new things and push myself past what I think I can accomplish.

In May, I’ll run my third half marathon. I’ll also celebrate my first anniversary of full-time freelancing. It’s a dream come true, and both accomplishments were worth every bit of blood, sweat and tears. Trust me, if I can do it, you can too.

James Patterson is a freelance health writer and public relations consultant at OnPoint Writing and Communications. His past clients include the National Institutes of Health, the President’s Cancer Panel and the National Diabetes Education Program.

Photo via Flickr user alancleaver_2000

By Carol Tice

I’ve read a lot of blog posts in reviewing writers’ blogs. And I’ve got one thing to say about the post headlines.

In the main, they suck.

Most weren’t grabbing me and making me feel compelled to read the posts under them. Many didn’t have any key words in them that would help relevant readers find and take an interest in them. Quite a few didn’t even give me a clear idea what the posts were about.

This upset me.

Headlines are just insanely important in our Internet-media era.

I’m not usually this bossy, but I want everyone reading this to stop what they’re doing right now and learn how to write great headlines.

It will be well worth your time, because writing truly outstanding headlines will change your life. Compelling headlines can rocket your writing career forward, whether you’re trying to monetize your blog or get an article assigned by a major magazine.

Hope you’re with me now.

I know that in the past, editors wrote headlines for many of us. Some still do, but in the main the days are over when you could write a general topic slug at the top of your article and that would cut it.

Understand that headlines work differently online, and in our current short-attention-span culture, than they worked in a newspaper 100 years ago.

To sum up, headlines are everything. If you don’t have a good headline, you will not be noticed, assigned, read, retweeted, clicked on, or “liked.”

It’s important to know how headlines work now and to master modern headline writing, because when you do, you will earn more from your writing. It’s just that simple. Many new doors will fling open and you will have more great-paying writing opportunities once you rock your headlines.

7 reasons why killer headlines will change your life

1. More readers. When your headline is irresistible and has good key words, you will attract readers and build your reputation.
2. More assignments. If you can write strong headlines in your article queries, you will get to write more and better-paying articles.
3. More subscribers. Your blog lives or dies by its headline in your subscriber emails and RSS feeds. The headline is often all they can see! If it’s not interesting, they move on. If that happens enough, they unsubscribe.
4. Better writing. When you write a strong headline, your post organizes itself quickly and is easier to write.
5. Faster writing. A good headline practically outlines your story for you, which means you write faster. Faster writers can write more each year, so they earn more.
6. Better subheads. Once you get the hang of headlines,  you’ll also start writing stronger subheads. And these days, your articles and blog posts need to be scannable. Strong subheads will help you with this.
7. You stand out. The vast majority of bloggers and writers don’t really understand headlines, and don’t write strong headlines. Learn how to do it, and you immediately look more savvy and professional than the average scribe.

I was very fortunate in that at my first staff-writing job, we were forbidden to turn in stories without proposed headlines. They would not be accepted. I was forced to learn to write headlines.

Over the years, I got better at it. Now, I often find my headlines are used by the editor (which is a real feat since many editors feel they must rewrite your headline to justify their jobs).

But I get the sense many others have not had the benefit of years of headline-writing experience. So here is a crash course:

Learn headline basics. I sometimes review query letters for writers. When I do, I often see queries like this: “I’d like to write about Healthy Living.” That’s not a headline, that’s a topic. A vague, ill-defined topic. As opposed to: 10 Tips for Healthy Living on the Road. Or maybe, Is Your Community Encouraging These Healthy-Living Habits? See how you can tell exactly what these articles or blog posts will be about? That’s what you want in a headline.

Understand the psychology. What makes humans click on a post? Figure this out, and your headlines will drive you some monster traffic. One thing that apparently drives our wee brains nuts is questions. One is a vagueness that can’t be answered without reading the post, as in a headline such as “Does your blog make these four key mistakes?” For more about this, read Why Do Some Headlines Fail?

Think brevity. Don’t make your blog headline go on for three lines. Think short and punchy. Delete any extraneous words.

Spend time on your headline. A headline shouldn’t be the first dashed-off thought you have. This is make-or-break up here on line one. Spend some time crafting and refining your headline. Write several and then think about which one works best.

Study great blog headlines. Many of my favorites are on Copyblogger. Scanning their popular posts bar is like a free course in headline writing.

By Carol Tice

At the beginning of 2011, I marked five years as a full-time freelance writer.

I feel intensely grateful to have spent these five years in control of my schedule and enjoying a variety of challenging and fun writing assignments. I love the freelance life.

Through the years of hacking my way through the freelance jungle, and mentoring other writers looking to earn a living, I’ve developed a philosophy.

I think there’s a mentality you need to succeed as a freelance writer. A belief system that helps you rise above the doubt, insecurity, and fears of starvation. It enables you to scratch out a living with just your ideas and your words, month after month.

This is the creed I live by. It’s helped me to earn more each year I’ve been a freelance writer.

This is my freelance writer’s manifesto:

1. As a freelance writer, I work hard. I deserve to earn a decent hourly rate.
2. I won’t let self-doubt hold me back from finding good-paying markets.
3. When I send out resumes or query letters, I won’t get discouraged or feel personally rejected. I will persevere.
4. I know I have the power to advance my writing career.
5. I will set goals for my writing business and take steps to meet them.
6. If I need more work, I will market my writing services more aggressively.
7. I will not use the economy as an excuse for not earning.
   
8. Even though it may not come easily to me, I can master new technology.
9. I will keep an open mind toward emerging types of writing.
10. If I encounter an aspect of the new-media world I don’t understand, I will learn about it.
11. I won’t waste my energy worrying about the recent proliferation of low-paying online writing markets.
12. I will actively participate in writer communities for camaraderie and support. We can help each other succeed.
    
13. It’s important as a freelancer to remember that I’m free. If the sun’s shining, maybe I’ll walk the dog in the middle of the day. I’ll take a few minutes to experience gratitude that I’m no longer trapped in a world of offices and set schedules.
14. I will give back to the writing community and share what I learn.

What’s your freelance writer’s manifesto? Write down the values that guide your freelance life and post them in your office.

By Carol Tice

Recently, my teenage son gave me a great insight into my freelance writing career. He’s taken up the online multiplayer game Minecraft, in which players build vast structures while battling the occasional zombie at night.

“How do you win the game?” I asked him.

He rolled his eyes, the way only teens can.

“There is no winning the game, mom,” he said. “It’s about the experience. It’s all about the journey.”

Well said, Evan. I so often forget this truth. Our careers, our lives, are all about the journey.

In writing, there is no arriving. There’s always the drive to write a better article, blog post, poem, or novel, next time.

Not to get all heavy, but as the Kabbalists say, we never kill time here on Earth. It’s the other way around: Time kills us. And we never know when that’ll happen. The turning of the year brings this unavoidable fact to the front of my mind.

So, knowing that your time is limited, what sights do you want to see on your journey? Where do you want to be sure to go? These are the questions I’m asking myself as I contemplate my plans for next year.

To answer my title question, your writing journey matters because really, the journey is all we have. There is no arrival, except at the grave.

Not a word of what we’ve written will help us then.

But if we’ve written well, what we leave behind will be part of our legacy, hopefully helping others long after we’re gone. I find that thought comforting.

What I find amazing and powerful about being a writer is if you have a goal, you can write your way there. Work hard, polish your writing up, keep sending it out there, and it will take you places.

You could pitch your way to new bylines in magazines, or even to new places on the map. I have a friend who was flown to Denmark to meet with Lego because they liked his writing. I recently read about a woman whose writing got her an assignment in Singapore from Coca-Cola.

Your words can carve a path for you through the desert, the jungle, across oceans, over mountains, and bring you amazing opportunities in as-yet unimagined places.

So here’s to a writing journey for all of us that’s full of breathtaking sights, unexpected turns, wonderful friends, and opportunities to grow and improve our craft.

Photo via Flickr user zatrokz

By Carol Tice

In freelance writing, I think analysis is good for the soul.

No, not the go-see-a-therapist type of analysis — the kind where you look back on the year and analyze what you earned.

Who were your best-paying clients by hourly rate? Who did you earn the most with? How did you meet your best new clients? So often, when I do this review I think I know who my best clients were, but when I do the numbers, it’s someone else. I actually recently dropped a client who represented a major monthly chunk of change, but on an hourly basis…blecch. They had to go.

I did a pretty in-depth analysis of where I got new clients in 2010.

Great new clients came from many places — my writer site getting found on natural search, through my LinkedIn profile, sending multi-idea queries, on niche job boards, and at in-person networking events. For me, having a multi-pronged marketing strategy has been key to making this my best earning year ever.

This was also the year I saw paid blogging for clients take off — along with related consulting work — and become a substantial part of my earnings.

One funny observation about this year: I did some weird projects! I got some unusual offers, and they contributed a decent amount of income. For instance, I wrote a white paper for an employees’ union. I blogged about surety bonds. I got a lot of nibbles about ghosting eBooks…maybe one will pay off next year.

I try to stay openminded when someone brings me something a little outside my normal wheelhouse. You never know when that offshoot will turn into a whole new, great-earning niche. I like to learn and grow and try new stuff, and that tendency seems to contribute to my bottom line, too.

Photo via stock.xchng user michaelaw

By Carol Tice

Resumes have been important to writers forever. Writing a strong one could really help you land better gigs.

By Carol Tice

As I review writer’s blogs, one of the things I often ask is, “Have you looked at your site with Google In-Page Analytics to see what your readers are clicking on?”

I get the sense many bloggers hadn’t heard about this amazing tool.

So I put together a short video that shows you how I use Google In-Page Analytics — which is still in beta — to find out exactly how readers use my blog. You’re basically able to spy on your readers and find out what they do when they visit.

If you don’t know what readers are clicking on, you’re basically blogging in the dark. You may be annoying them with your ads, or they may be of interest to readers.

When I turned on In-Page Analytics and learned what visitors really wanted to read on my site, it was definitely an eye-opener. I made a lot of changes — deleting widgets in the sidebar, moving some things up and others down, and improving what’s on static pages readers clicked on most.

If you are not yet using Google Analytics at all, I strongly recommend getting started.

Sign up with Google Analytics and submit your blog’s URL for tracking. In WordPress, installing a plug-in such as Google Analytics for WordPress will help keep your analytics flowing — otherwise, Google tends to want to disconnect them every time you make any changes to your stylesheet.

If you’re thinking, “This is too technical and hard for me!” or “Why should I care?” just take a look at what In-Page Analytics can do before you blow it off. This is a powerful tool for helping you connect with readers and better meet their needs.

Click here to view the Google In-Page Analytics Training.

Fascinating, no? I’ve made a lot of changes after checking my Google In-Page data.

By Carol Tice

It’s always important to make your site visually inviting. But the writing itself is the core of it all, the reason people come to your blog. Without strong writing, your site can be clean, beautiful…and devoid of visitors.

Some basic changes to both how you write and the content you choose for your blog can help draw readers and keep them coming back.

Here are some simple tips to improve your blog posts:

1. Work harder on headlines. I saw a lot of lazy headline writing in the blog review last week, with nothing compelling to make me click and read it. If you’re not getting the traffic you want, spend time learning how to write great headlines readers will find irresistible. I recommend reading Psychotactics’ free report: Why Some Headlines Fail.
2. Get SEO words into your headlines. I see no-SEO headlines everywhere — blog posts titled something like “A bad decision” or “Ignore the red flags.” I have no idea what these posts are about, and I’m not going to read them. Understand that your headlines are floating around the Internet, disconnected from the context of your blog. Each headline needs to be able to stand alone and communicate what your blog’s about.
3. Fulfill your headline’s promise. Often, I find myself reading a blog post, glancing back up at the headline, and then reading it again in hopes of finding the information promised in the headline. Once you’ve written your headline, make sure you deliver that topic.
4. Get SEO words into your first lines. This should be obvious, yet I still didn’t get it until recently. We’ve all done Google searches and seen how often, the first line or two of a post appears in the search result along with the headline. That means getting key words into those lines could help lure readers to click on your post. It’ll also help readers feel reassured right away that you are writing about their interests.
5. Use a word instead of a phrase. Don’t say “he thought about possibly making a decision on whether or not to” when you could say “he decided.”
6. Shorten paragraphs. On the Internet, a two-sentence paragraph is good. A one-sentence paragraph is often even better. A five-sentence paragraph is frequently not going to get read. Online readers want short blocks, or it’s too intimidating.
7. Shorten sentences. Just as paragraphs should shrink, sentences shouldn’t ramble along for five lines, either. Overlong sentences send a message that you’re an academic, or in any case lofty and far above us all. Break long sentences into two or three sentences. Know that sentences on blogs can be quite short and work well. Like this one.
8. Vary paragraph openings. Scan down your post and read the openings of your paragraphs. If they all start with “However” or “Then” or any identical word or phrase, that gets dull for the reader. Make sure you vary your opening lines.
9. Make paragraph openings scannable. Don’t start paragraphs with elaborate windups. Reading the opening phrase of each paragraph should be a workable way to quickly scan the post and find out what it’s about.
10. Hunt down repetitive words or phrases. I recently read a blog post that used the phrase “over and over”…well, over and over. At least four times. That’s a real reader turnoff. Say “repeatedly” the next time.
11. Say it once. Don’t belabor a point in a short blog post. Reread and trim out additional references to the same point.
12. Strengthen your transitions. A good article or blog post should be knit like a sweater. Each paragraph should follow logically from the one before it, so that readers simply can’t look away until the end. Read your post again just for the transitions, to make sure there are no dropped stitches where you abruptly switch onto a new track and might lose the reader.
13. Kill your opening. If you’re one of those writers who takes four paragraphs or more to get to the gist of your post’s topic, you’re probably losing a lot of readers along that winding path to your initial point. Hack the big windup off the top and start with the strong paragraph with key words on your topic that gives us the lowdown.
14. Exterminate extraneous paragraphs. Sometimes, a paragraph you’ve written simply doesn’t add much to the post. It’s going back over ground you’ve already covered, or it’s a point you’re adding that simply doesn’t contribute much. Out it goes.
15. Trim tangents. I’m of the opinion that there is no room for tangents in a typical short blog post. If you have a side issue you’d like to address, do another post on it.
16. Review word choices. Your word choices tell your audience about your persona. Are you using five-dollar words that might alienate some readers? Read back through your post to look at your descriptive words. Make sure they convey the tone you want.
17. That. This word is often just excess flab. “He decided that it was time to go” means the same as “He decided it was time to go.”
18. Just. Here’s one I’m guilty of — another extraneous word you can trim.
19. Very and really. Here’s a couple of words to use sparingly. They rarely add anything. “It was exciting” will do just as well as “It was really very exciting.”
20. Your/You’re. Can’t tell these apart? Try saying “you are” in its place. If it makes sense, it’s you’re (contraction). If it doesn’t, it’s your (possessive, or belonging to).
21. Its/It’s. Repeat the exercise above — if saying “it is” makes sense, you want “it’s.” If not, use the possessive (its).
22. Whose/Who’s. Repeat the exercise in #20.
23. Their/They’re/There. It’s possessive, it’s they are, or it’s a place.
24. Being verbs. Passive being verbs (writing, saying, learning) bore readers. Switch to active, present-tense verbs whenever possible — I write, say, learn.
25. Past perfect verbs. The problem in #24 only worse. Try to avoid saying “has been going” or “have been seeing.” Say “they went” or “he saw.”
26. Know your expressions. If you’re going to use a proverb, saying, or piece of slang, make sure you’re using it right. I pointed out to one writer that she had put “chunk change” in her post when she likely meant “chump change.” She insisted chunk change was actually correct. There’s really no excuse for this sort of thing when a quick Google search can fact-check it.
27. Spellcheck. You think you know how to spell words like dependent or advisor…but it’s possible you don’t. Check and make sure.
28. Web site vs website, e-mail vs email. When new words emerge in our culture, I turn to the AP Stylebook for help on the correct way to write them. For instance, recently AP changed its standard from Web site to website. Many are still hoping the standard will become email rather than the current e-mail. Knowing these small details helps you look like a pro.
29. Cannot. It’s one word — apparently, one many people think is two words.
30. Know where punctuation marks go. Commas and periods go inside quotes, not outside them, for instance. If you’re ever glazed and can’t remember, look at a newspaper.
31. Eliminate dangling participles. I was cured of this one forever by my 9th grade English teacher, but in case you didn’t have Mr. Matheson (RIP), let me give you a couple graphic examples: “Running down the hall, my jacket caught on a locker.” (Spooky jacket running by itself!) “Creamed and boiled I like my onions.” (Ouch, I don’t like to be boiled!) After an initial participle, the subject must directly follow…or embarrassment may ensue.
32. Use quotes. Even if you’re not interviewing people and it’s a personal blog, you can always draw readers in by quoting conversations you’ve had in your life. Here’s a post I did using quotes that gives you a sense of the spice quotes can add.
33. Add useful links. Many personal blogs don’t do any linking. While there’s a theory that links distract the reader, I’m of the opinion a blog post should be like a lunchbox. It’s handy by itself — but you should be able to open it up and get more nourishment out of it, too. Your post is a starting point that allows the reader to learn more, which gives you more credibility and makes your posts more useful to readers. Plus, linking to busy sites will help you get found.
34. Be creative. Posts can be screenshares, poems, cartoon strips, or an analysis of someone else’s song lyrics. They can open with a famous saying. Feel free to blow readers’ minds with something different now and then.
35. Take a risk. Your blog posts are a chance to stretch yourself as a writer and get immediate feedback. Write something daring, wild and beautiful, and see what happens.
36. Go naked. Stop hiding your true self from your audience, and tell them what’s really going on in your life. Unvarnished honesty is much appreciated in the blogosphere.
37. Ask questions. Don’t be a know-it-all — your readers want to feel their opinions matter, too. Write posts that ask readers to share what they know.
38. Answer questions. If your readers write to you, answer them on your blog. It’s a great way to engage readers and show you care.
39. Make it about the reader. So many bloggers are simply musing about their life. Unless you use those life experiences to deliver something useful to readers, they may well be bored. Think about how you could help readers with your experience.
40. Proofread it…again. Many writers just don’t seem to do that final read-through. But error-free posts convey more authority and tell readers you really care about their experience. (I sure hope there aren’t any typos in this story, or boy am I going to look dumb!)

By Carol Tice

After reviewing more than 100 writers’ blogs recently, I found myself mentioning the same issues over and over. Here they are:

The 10 most common mistakes I see writers making on their blogs

1. No picture of you. My motto is “people hire people.” They don’t hire a Web site, or subscribe to a blog. They hire or follow you. They want to see your smiling face so they feel a personal connection with you.
2. Weak, invisible or missing ‘About’ page. Your About page is really important. Many readers visit it before deciding whether to subscribe. I didn’t believe this when I started out, but now that I do Google in-page analytics, I can see that my About tab is the most-clicked item of anything on my home page. I used to give it short shrift — it was actually just a link to my writer site! Lame. I believe I’ve seen a real difference in my subscription rate now that I’ve taken the time to write a page specifically for my blog site, about who I am and why I write this blog.
3. No testimonials. Somewhere on your site — your About page is good, or even in the home-page sidebar — include a testimonial from someone who loves your blog, or your copywriting, or whatever you’re trying to market. Those firsthand quotes are very impactful to visitors.
4. Visually unappealing. Many blogs I visit are hard on the eyes. For instance, they’ve got a black background with tiny little white letters — near-impossible to read, and if you ever try to cut-and-paste a paragraph to quote, it comes out invisible. Or they’ve got three columns, including one on the left-hand side. My second big learning from A-List is that design and usability really matter. Include a nice photo with each post — it’s amazing how much more interesting your post will seem. Unclutter your site of anything extraneous. Have just one, righthand sidebar. See Zen Habits for an excellent example.
5. Too much advertising. Ideally, you shouldn’t have any ads on your blog, or maybe just one or two. At this point in the blogosphere, I think ads are a real turnoff for many readers. If ads are working for you, great — just tread carefully and don’t overdo. But if you’ve got Google ads slapped everywhere and you’ve made $12 from them this year, take them down! This was another big insight from A-List for me, that there’s a better way to monetize your site. You can affiliate-sell products you personally use and love on a “tools and products I love” page. This makes me feel like I’m not a sleazy shill, and that instead it’s another form of useful information I’m offering my readers. It’s selling with integrity, and it’s on a tab that doesn’t clutter up your blog page.
6. No free stuff. You will not believe how many more subscribers you get when you add a free report. People love free stuff! Wish I had gotten my free product together sooner, but thankfully, I finally did get a free report together.
7. It’s anti-social. I can’t believe how many blogs I’ve seen that have no retweet button, no way to share on Facebook or other social sites. Without the social-sharing buttons, it’s like you’re blogging in a dark closet. It’s very hard for you to get discovered. Yes, the odd reader might hand-carry your link to bit.ly and put it on Twitter, but make it easy and you’ll get a lot more promotional mileage out of each post.
8. No regular updates. If you can only post once a month, then do that — every first day of the month. People are creatures of habit, and they want to be able to count on seeing a post from you at a specific time. If you post twice a week, always do it on the same days and even at the same time of day. Show readers they can count on you.
9. You don’t engage readers. Many bloggers have complained to me that they can’t get any comments. You can change this by asking your readers questions, and by posting entries that are all about them…like the blog laboratory post. Then, double your number of comments by responding to every single comment you get. Those commenters will feel noticed, and come back and comment again. Blogging is not a one-way broadcast — it’s a conversation. You can get more ideas from this Blog Herald post on how to create posts that get more comments. Like Capt. Jean-Luc Picard always said on Star Trek:Generations, “Engage!”
10. Sloppy, rambling, or typo-filled writing. This should go without saying, but with a bazillion blogs in the naked city, people are looking for you to blow their minds with your writerly skill. No typos, please, and keep your posts concise. Honestly, write the heck out of each post, as if it were a $1-a-word magazine article, and your blog will take you far.

If you recognize yourself in here, don’t feel bad. I’m constantly learning new things about how to make my blog better, and changing it yet again. Even really successful bloggers make mistakes and have to learn from others.

For inspiration, see this great video from Mary Jaksch of Write to Done about how her Goodlife Zen blog sucked initially.

By Carol Tice

To be a successful freelance writer, you need to be truly fearless. If you’re afraid to put yourself and your writing out there, you miss out on opportunities that might have brought you more income.

I rarely meet a writer whose problem is that they don’t write well. More often, their problem is self-confidence. Fear is holding them back from marketing aggressively — from going after the gigs they really want.

If you feel hobbled by fear in your writing career, this post is for you.

Here are 10 concrete tools for vanquishing your fears. I hope at least one of them will help you move beyond fear in the coming year.

1. Live the fear. If you can find a way, try to experience your worst fear. The exercise will end that fear’s power over you. An example: I began my writing career as a starving teenage songwriter. I’d head off each week to an old stone office building on Hollywood Boulevard to have my songs shredded by my writing group. If our instructor sensed I was feeling timid, she’d say, “What are you afraid of?” I’d say something like “Everyone will laugh at me and I’ll be embarrassed.” And she’d say, “OK, let’s do it!” Then I’d sing the song, while all the other group participants laughed at me, quite loudly. Usually, I’d end up laughing too, because it was so obvious that a) that would probably never really happen and b) so what if it does? You don’t die of it or anything.
2. Lighten up. I find a lot of fear comes from taking ourselves too seriously. Try to have a sense of humor about the mistakes you make in writing — say, misspelling a word in an 80-point front-page headline, as I did during a stint editing an alternative paper. Articles will have errors. Personal essays will be ridiculed. But in the great scheme of things, it’s still pretty minor. We live to write another day, and people’s memories are short. When things go wrong with our writing, we can either laugh or cry about it. Choose to laugh.
3. Get a perspective. Back when I was that starving songwriter, I used to have terrific stage fright. To loosen up, I would think just before I went on that whether I rocked or bombed that night, I could be certain that one billion Chinese could care less.
4. Break it down into smaller steps. Do you feel overwhelmed and frightened by all the options out there, and by everything you know you should be doing to move your writing career along your desired path? When you feel this kind of fear, stop looking at the big picture. Take your big wish list and break it down into this month’s to-do list — what could you reasonably get done in the next 30 days? Suddenly, the marketing plan or the writing assignment seems doable.
5. It’s not about you. So many writers are crushed if they send off a query and don’t get a yes. To which I say: Your view is too self-centered. There are a million possible reasons for the lack of response that have nothing to do with you. That editor may have had a death in the family, quit their job, or just be too swamped to read it. Stop fearing personal condemnation and realize you’re just searching the universe for the fit that’s right, for both you and the publication.
6. Stop experiencing rejection. Rejection is just a feeling in your head. Make a decision not to react to a “no” on a query as a rejection. Not getting this gig may turn out to be positive in so many ways. Maybe that editor would have been a terror, or that project would have kept you from taking a much better one that was coming shortly. Trust that you will find a match between your talents and the marketplace.
7. Know that freelancers rule. People with full-time jobs are the ones who should be scared — millions of them have been laid off and have no income. In the past five years of freelancing, I’ve never lost all my clients at once! We are perfectly positioned for the 21st Century economy. Experts believe this is not a temporary, recession-era trend, and that more service jobs will be done freelance in the future. We’re the ones with job security.
8. Get rid of negative beliefs. Did you know that as a human being, you have unlimited potential for personal growth? We read inspiring stories of human endeavor every day, and yet think “that couldn’t be me.” But it can! Banish “I can’t” from your vocabulary, and simply vow to get out there and try.
9. Learn more. Do you have a feeling deep down in the pit of your stomach that you don’t know enough about the type of writing you’re trying to do? And that makes you afraid to put your work out there? If so, there’s a remedy for this — take a class. Join a writing group and have your work critiqued. As you learn more, you’ll gain confidence that you’re qualified to handle better-paying writing assignments.
10. Get spiritual. Do you believe in a higher power, and that you’re not here by accident? Then you probably feel this higher power is arranging experiences in your life for your benefit — these events were put there on purpose for your character development. That means if you screw up an assignment or don’t get one, it’s because you needed to learn a life lesson from that experience. When you think of it that way, you have to ask: What am I afraid of? In my tradition, services often conclude with a hymn that contains the well-known phrase “into Your hands I commit my spirit” and ends: “You are my God; I won’t be afraid.” Harness your faith in the Source to banish your fear.

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