Letters to the Editor
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Abandon the passive voice
Good writers don't use the passive voice. Remove auxilliary verbs from your lexicon and start again.
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@LW
LW, we don't even know what you write about. Post a few paragraphs of your writing here and you will probably get a few hundred expert opinions. You may even get offers of publication!
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If you stop trying to be a writer
you'll be ten times as bitter as if you try but fail.
Ah, a mouldy cliche. You could have done better than that. See!
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audience feedback
LW, I like Amerigo's idea. Why not post something short you've written that's not about writing here, and let us have at it? I see glimmers of promise in your letter to Cary. You vary your sentence structure well, and your prose isn't overwrought.
The best feedback I've received about my writing has come from non-writers: roommates, boyfriends, etc. Their questions and criticism are more likely to help me figure out what isn't working.
Oh, and reading aloud at open mics, if you can stomach it, will provide you with instant feedback. If you can make people laugh, that's a good sign.
If you want to get published, though, it behooves you to get to know some other published writers, or at least others who really want to be published writers--and I'm not talking about vanity publishing or those awful collections of poetry by people who are gullible enough to buy the book in order to have their poems published. Learning how to find other writers who can mentor you is a valuable undertaking.
If you've already found The Writer's Market, pay close attention to the publishers' guidelines. I worked as an editorial assistant at a publishing firm for a few months, and I was suprised by how many authors sent unsolicited manuscripts that in no way fit our parameters.
Your topic matters, too. If all you're writing about is your creativity, recognize that's not going to interest other people. What makes you unique? What really interests you? What do you know about that interests other people? One of my writing teachers in college told me, "Stop writing about writing, and start writing about what spurred you to write in the first place." That still sounds like good advice.
Getting more life experience under your belt, via working "regular" jobs or traveling, would give you more grist for the mill. Don't go directly to grad school in an attempt to stave off your time in the real world; you'll probably regret it.
If you're talented, determined, and very lucky, you could be a well-regarded published author someday. There's no shame, though, in deciding that you're going to write for an audience of one, and make a living some other way. I wish you all the best.
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things you need to write
1. Talent
2. Passion
3. Discipline
You can acquire the third element, and you can learn to express the second if you have the drive to "exteriorize" your personality--if you are a private person by nature this will be hard for you. The first one is that mysterious entity we seem to be either born with or not.
A veteran of many writer's groups and classes, I can say there are some nice well-meaning people who just cannot write as a career, much less become rich and famous by writing (which is what they are really after). It's hard to know at which point to honestly tell them what you think, with the polite caveat that you hope they'll prove you wrong.
Yes, everybody can write for self-discovery and as a meaningful hobby, in much the same way they can paint or do woodworking for that purpose. But many writers are much more ambitious, being as they are in ignorance about the business of writing.
But writing for a living is very difficult and has much to do with knowing the markets and with being able to churn out assigned writing that feels like work and drudgery because that's what it is. If you can't deal with that, stick with it as a hobby and find something else to do with your life. It's not failure to do that, any more than it's failure to admit that while you are a good piano player, you're not concert pianist material because there happens to be a very limited space in the recording/concert world for professional concert pianists.
Nor does it degrade the value and joy of being able to play the piano fluently, not for one minute. You'll always be glad of the time invested at the keyboard, even if you never play at Carnegie Hall, because your spirit and intellect have been nurtured. Writing should feel the same way.
If it doesn't--oh well, the world is full of wannabes, both in the writing and music disciplines. Only you know what kind of writer you really are. Good luck.
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YOU need to tell YOU
"There must be someone who could read one of my manuscripts and then whack me across the face with it -- or tell me, yes, keep on trying, there's something here. Where do I find him?"
Even if you did find this magical, objective, ultimate, talent-deciding person, would you believe him? Or would you convince yourself into thinking he was wrong, or lying, or must have missed something?
Be honest with yourself. You know when you write something worth reading. It's the greatest feeling to read a piece of your own work and feel completely proud of it. That, more than anything, is its own reward. That is the magical man.
Besides, if there's one thing I've learned from writing it's this: you cannot please everyone.
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ALL WRITERS HAVE DOUBTS
The best advice I ever received was from Stephen King who said edit your work as much as you possibly can. Edit it until you cannot remove one more line, one more word. Then your writing will have power and people will want to read it. I always tell my students and friends, give someone your first page and ask them what they think. If they say it is good, it's crap. If they ask for the rest, it's good.
I have a friend who one the Pulitzer Prize for literature when he was in his twenties. Nothing he has written since has - in the eyes of critics - measured up. I have another friend who has written and published nearly 100 novels - all romance - and lives with the fear she has never written anything enduring.
The young man needs to realize the arts are no place to seek affirmation or approval. Writers are revered but not loved. Write one bad book and the public will crucify you. Write a great one and you only buy yourself a little time until you have to do it all over again.
My advice is choose a different career for money and affirmation and let writing be your mistress. If you do that, you will always love her.