What causes some writers to be successful and not others? Is it talent? Opportunity? Or just plain old luck?

That’s what many people believe. When they see a writer who is successful, they attribute it to chance. They assume that if you bloom, it means you happened to get planted in a good garden, and someone chose to water you.

In other words, they see success as something that is totally out of your control. The best you can hope for is that someone takes pity on you and gives you a shot.

Here’s a different perspective. You can choose to bloom wherever you are planted. Today, we all basically have access to the same resources. There is so much great free content on YouTube, podcasts, blogs, and inexpensive books that you can get the equivalent of a master’s level education practically for free.

It’s not so much about the opportunities you have… instead, it’s what you DO with those opportunities. And today, we all have more opportunities as writers than at any other time in history.

In the movie The Dark Knight, the Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent carries a two-headed coin as a symbol of his freedom to make the best of any situation. He says, “I don’t leave anything up to chance. I make my own luck.”

You don’t have to wait to get planted in a different garden. You don’t need to wait for someone else to pour into you. You can bloom right where you’re planted by investing in yourself and taking advantage of all the resources and opportunities right at your fingertips.