Careful when you start ditching Texas and Texans, we are pretty defensive about out state and state of mind. And it is never good to lump everyone in one group. LOL
I understand about getting out and not doing to many demos. Unfortunatley I fall in that catagory of a non performer, non musician, all I have are my lyrics and songs when they are on cd. I felt I had to get some songs demoed in order to be taken seriously. Then I can approach those artists and they can hear what I am capable of. It is not easy to approach someone with a piece of paper and expect them to hear what you hear.
I am getting out some, as my job and life allow. I am getting in touch with artists. Two have said that they would co-write with me, One said he wanted to put one of my songs on his next album( it will be a while because he just released his first) One is listening to a pitch now and another person has listened to a couple songs and wants to hear more. I am sending some to another artist associated with that one. All those things and more are what I have been working on. After I get my foot in the door, then I can get to the next step. Hopefully they will want more songs which i can maybe do with them as co-writers etc. etc. etc.
It is a different journey when you are not a performer. It is a harder journey. I am finding out how many bad songwriter wantabes are out there and I understand why it is hard to get to an artist. Just about impossible starting out without something that they can actually listen to.
So now I am still working on all of that and getting back to writing some more .