One of a writer’s fears is that there is no audience, that your words and efforts will never reach anyone. It does raise the question; are you writing for an audience or are you writing for yourself?
In the 600+ post I’ve left here, I’ve never asked for a comment, but I’m asking now. Why do you write?
Word Ferret: Writing Prompts, Book Reviews, and Short Stories 
Never write for yourself only, dear. That’s literary incest.
Always write for an audience, even if it’s an audience of one – even if it’s your cat.
Keep your hand in – write regularly. There’s always a venue – an article for a newsletter, a comment for a blog post, a note for a bulletin board, a news item for the local paper (The editor has to read it before he thinks of rejecting it).
I had the pleasure of knowing a gentleman once, who wrote his poems on birchbark and scraps of butcher paper and gave them to the tourists passing through his community. He went out every day to find his audience.
Walt Whitman claimed to find letters from God, dropped in the streets. Not a bad strategy. Drop a few yourself. I hope to find one.
P.S. Why do I write? I can’t help myself.
Did you ever get a song stuck in your head? Well, I write to get the yapping characters and incessant stories out of my head.
-Michael
The Fiction Side: The Storyteller http://mgkizzia.wordpress.com/
The Non-Fiction Side: Word & Spirit http://michaelkizzia.wordpress.com/
I may not write prose, but I do write poetry. I write because it’s the best outlet that I know. Many people have different ways of unleashing their emotions. Some sing, some dance, but I write. I also write because I freaking enjoy it. I love putting my ideas ( as warped as they are) into words on paper…and I also love having an audience to write to. That’s why I write. 🙂
It’s one of my first loves. 🙂 I wish I could find more time to do it now, and I do want it to be a career someday.