That’s… a lot of questions!

And I’m actually going to respond to your final sentence first.

Your line about ‘shy people who don’t get the clients’ bothers me. The whole point of my article is that confidence can – slowly, tentatively, steadily – be built. By anyone. That ‘handicap’ absolutely does not have to stay with you for life. The whole point of my article is to encourage people to drop that defeatist mentality.

On to your actual questions.

I’d say, personally, that ‘having an audience’ for your comedy writing is more important than performing it yourself. So, yes, you can still gain confidence by seeking feedback on it that way.

Copywriting can make you more ‘speedy and prolific’, especially if you’ve worked in a high-pressure environment. But whether that’s a good thing in the context of comedy… I’m unsure. It’s always nice to have multiple ideas you can pare down to the real comedy gold. That said, ‘prolific’ does not equal ‘consistently good’.

Confidence isn’t global from the outset – but it can be. It has plenty of potential to be. Yes, having practiced something will give you greater confidence, because you feel like you know it better. But that can be applied to anything – any subject, any situation – and to far more than one of those at a time. There’s no reason to limit yourself to being confident in just one area, or two, or… you get the idea.

The notion that ‘social confidence’ is uniquely specific and can’t be ‘fixed’… is bull****. I mean that, it’s a cop-out. I assure you that no copywriter you look up to or admire now began their career with perfect gift of the gab. We’ve all had to work at it, to some extent. It won’t ever get fixed if you refuse to put the effort in.

I get the impression that lost bids have coloured your thinking here. There’s also no copywriter you’ll meet who’s ever won every single job they ever pitched for. It’s a knock each time, but you get over it. As well as confidence, something else all copywriters learn to develop is a thicker skin. You have to dust yourself off, put yourself out there and pitch again. And again and again and again. The more you lean on ‘shyness’ and deliberately avoid those situations, the less opportunities you have to win work. Repeat self-perpetuating cycle ad infinitum.

This article should not have read as an ‘easy for the confident person to say’ story. My aim was to encourage people to have more faith in themselves and their abilities. If that’s not what you got out of this, please think about this comment and re-read the article with that context in mind.