John,
There was a "MUSIC STARTS HERE" networking event on Tuesday. One of the speakers, writer/artist Georgia Middleton, who has had MAJOR RECORD AND PUBLISHING DEALS, talked about writing with artists a lot in Nashville. She talked about the phenomenon of writing not just one, but multiple songs with artists, having them in the room, doing pretty much everything for them, and then at the end of the session they go "Great! Who do you think we could get to CUT THIS?" Not only do they not realize THEY are the artist, they want someone ELSE to do it for them.
It is something that is world wide and we all have to deal with. Finding co-writers, artists, just like minded people, is hard enough. Finding people on the same page and having follow through is even harder.
I have similar stories, writing with artists, showing them things they would take decades to learn, and they seem to ignore it all. They don't do the songs, keep writing the same stuff they have been writing with predictable results. The only saving grace that I try to remember is that most people who do this are GONE within TWO YEARS. Everyone gets very excited at first, then they are gone.
The only other thing I might suggest is what Matt Casey did. Have you ever thought about starting a Facebook group for writers/artists in your area? In Matt's case in Boston there were a lot of artists and writers, but no country, and most had no interest in co-writing. He put together this Facebook group "New England to Nashville" and suddenly had writers and artists (mostly artists) popping up all over the place. He started putting shows together and then the group got bigger and bigger. Now he has a couple hundred members, does charity shows, workshops, has his own publishing group and his own management/booking agency.
I'm not saying that would happen around you, but you might find a few people not too far from you that you did not know existed. I really don't know outside of that.
The people I know who have done this well, Bev and Cliff Nelson, Matt, Janice Starodub in Manitoba, etc. all sort of had the same experiences. There didn't seem to be anything going on around them and they didn't think there was any one in their area. So they just started something themselves. Always was small at first, but then grew.
Your's may not be that way, I don't know. I hope you can find some people, find SKYPE, or whatever. I saw your note on Andrew, and I get that you both are more lyricists. There are more lyric writers than anything in songwriting, and most music people don't really look that much for lyrics, as they tend to write their own. I hope you can find someone or a few someone's. Sometimes you just have to keep trying.
Good luck.
MAB
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