Someone who calls him or herself Brighton Roc writes…
I've been reading your blog for years now and this is only the second time I've written but once I saw the recent "Name Withheld" column, I just had to. I understand the problem. I'm an unprofessional. I write. Sometimes. It is always easiest to write when I have a purpose, when I know it is going somewhere. But who's going to read it? I have no contracts. I have no publications. I have no readers eager to pour over my latest scribblings. So what can I do to force myself over this hump of uninspiration?
Easy. Blog it.
That is the beauty of the internet for me. I may never "make it," and knowing how much drive I posses I doubt that status will ever change. But if I post my work online, the world can see it. Punctuation and spelling errors included. The potential (however slim) is there. The quality doesn't really matter. The internet is hotbed of quantity, not quality. Much like Norman Rockwell's teacher's saying, "Everyone has a thousand bad drawings in them. The sooner you get rid of them, the better," (or words to that effect) the more you write, the better you will get. And if you blog it, people might just see your improvement. The possibility is there.
Anyway, that is my writing inspiration. It's not much better than no audience and you still have to force yourself but it helps me finish the things I know few people will ever read. 'Cause many people might.
Yeah, it is easier to write when you have some idea of where it might appear and who might pay you for it but it doesn't come easily when you're starting out. Those who buy writing tend to not want to engage you until you've shown what you can do. If you take the position that you won't show what you can do until they're ready to hire you, you create a bad chicken/egg conundrum for yourself.
Writing for the Internet is a good idea. So is looking around for small venues where you might at least be able to get published — local papers, newsletters, magazines that pay little or nothing. Don't let yourself get exploited by folks who can pay (or can pay better) but if no one's buying your writing yet, you might need to set your sights a bit lower just to get the machine working. In some cases, depending on what you want to write and what resources you have, self-publishing may work…though blogging is probably easier, requires less investment and ultimately pays about the same.
But I'd disagree with you that the quality of work on the 'net doesn't matter. It's easy to find bad writing on the Internet. If you just offer one more blog full of it, you won't cut yourself away from the herd. You will if you have something to say and the means to say it. And if you don't have something worth saying, how you say it won't matter.