No Such Thing as Nothing or Nobody

I receive emails from around the world. Some want money. Some want instant publication. But some struggle to connect to the writing world, eager to soak up information. Many state they have no  means to make a living as a writer in their geographic region. Often I hear comments along the line of:

• I live in the middle of nowhere. There are no writers here.
• There are no writing groups in my town.
• My area has no writing markets.

First, unless you have no neighbors for twenty miles, someone writes. If you live in a town, someone writes. If you live within an hour of a town, someone writes. Just like you have to make an effort to find the right agent, publisher or market, you have to fight to find a writing partner. And if you're on the reclusive side, the thought irritates you. So you claim to be the only writer in town. With 85% of the US claiming to have "write a novel" on its bucket list, what are the odds none of them live near you?

Second, you can't tell me that there isn't a group of people meeting in your town that discusses writing, reading, or books. Truth is, you haven't found it. If you still swear there is no group (I'm still not convinced), refer back to my first point. Since there are other writers, it behooves you to create a group. If you aren't adamant enough to create a group for your needs, then maybe you aren't adamant . . . about . . . writing?

Third, writing markets exist if you have doctors, lawyers, a chamber of commerce, businesses, newspapers, magazines, schools, social groups, nonprofits, or real estate companies. I'm sure there are more, but these come to mind first. I've learned over the years that writing markets abound. If you think nothing exists in your reach that you can write for, you aren't comfortable in your writing skin or you haven't been doing it long enough to be flexible to the needs of the markets. If someone needs writing/copy/stories in any way, shape or form, then pitch it.

I'm trying to say that if you have a need to earn a living as a writer, you create or find the means to do it. When you say you can't, you're right. But when you say you can, you can be right, too.