Getting GOOD experience as a newbie

Hey all,

I just used the search feature and searched 'no experience' and didn't come up with anything so I'll just post this up.

I'm new to copywriting. I've always been a passionate writer and I've been told I'm quite persuasive (I think I have a good handle of human psychology), but now I'd like to monetize this passion and ready myself to have a constant source of location-independent income. Also, I'm very interested in the copywriter's work ethic. I ultimately aspire to be a fiction writer someday and I figure that the persistence and focus I need to develop as a good copywriter will be useful for barreling through the writer's block I always succumbed to when I started writing fiction a few years back.

I've written long blog posts on my personal site seandominguez DOT com and wrote a couple of articles on EzineArticles as practice. While my posts serve the purpose of driving traffic to my site as I try to build some authority in the domain of self-improvement and startups, they don't really do anything in terms of giving me the experience I need to make good money freelancing. I'm looking on oDesk and I see all these folks who want copywriters with "proven results". I think to myself, "what can I prove? I don't have a product to sell, nor do I know anyone who is willing to give me a chance to write copy for them since I have no experience". Essentially, the chicken and the egg.

For example, my brother just showed me DropDeadCopy DOT com and this guy seems to have a lot of great experience figuring out landing pages. But how does anyone figure out the science of landing pages unless they themselves have a bunch of clients/their own product to learn from? That's the kind of experience I want.

Might be a bit long-winded so I'll get to the point:

1.) How can I get GOOD experience with lots of learning involved? I'm honestly willing to work for extremely cheap (or even free) if someone's willing to give me a good review and useful feedback about what's converting and what's not and what's good and what's not. However, when I browse oDesk it seems as if I'll be writing for cheap and learning nothing (being a hired hand who is immediately discarded as soon as feedback is exchanged).

2.) After reading the very useful sticky post, I see that my experience is more in the realm of article writing vs. copywriting. I'm sure copywriting pays more money due to the nature of the biz, but how much can a good article writer make?

3.) Sort of off topic from copywriting, but how do you guys feel about the nature of a lot of online products? I was so turned off from internet marketing a while back because of the 3:00am infomercial vibe I got from really scummy types. But while browsing oDesk, I saw a gig that paid $3000 to write copy like the kind on commission-cash-code.com. While I watched the video, laughed, and rolled my eyes (and found out on here that the guy featured in the video is an actor and payments go to Estonia), the idea of making $2k or $3k here and there to write copy for terrible products seems pretty enticing.

4.) I'm willing to put my heart and soul into getting good at copywriting because I love writing, I love the challenge, and I love what the experience could do for me as I start other entrepreneurial endeavors. Given this, how long do you think it would take me to make $150 a day and how much do copywriters charge an hour (or is it project based?)

Thanks for reading my long as hell post. All help is suuuuper appreciated.