For the past 24 hours, I've muted all publications that are about writing and all publications that are about self[-improvement.

The number of publications that are about writing appears to be never ending. As fast as I mute ten, another ten pop up. My stream is beginning to look stark. No wonder I always seem to have a dozen articles about how to be a success as a writer.

Writing as a career path is now over-subscribed. It goes without saying that writers need readers, but most people don't actually like reading. Only 5% of the public read books (according to various publishers) regularly.

To be a professional writer means that one earns one's living (full time) from writing. To be an amateur writer means that one writes occasionally - whether for money or not, but one still gets published (as opposed to self-published).

I disagree with you that the standard has been raised over the past 20 years. I graduated high school in 1969. We were the last class who had a full classical education. Since then, writing skills have become worse and worse. In America, one has to write to a Grade 8 level.

About eight or nine years ago, there was a story in the media that a study showed that 95% of people at 4-year colleges couldn't write a grammatical sentence. When I was at college in San Diego, I did writing classes (I had already been a professional writer for some 30 years at that point) simply to get credits. There would only be one or two that were capable of writing grammatically. The rest were virtually semiliterate.

It doesn't help that many people are making a lot of money by telling people that they can learn to write professionally and earn a decent living from it. It's simply not true.