6 Reasons This Writer Isn't Writing

I can write but why am I not writing? Why won't anyone hire me? I'll tell you why.

1. My name is Maharlika, not Mary.

2. I am not blonde or blue-eyed.

3. I do not speak English with a twang.

4. I refuse to engage in a price war with Indians.
At the risk of sounding like I am sourgraping, I wonder how these Indians get impressive reviews. Even their GaF profiles are peppered with grammatical mistakes! Yet they come with 49, 52, and even 208 ratings! How was that possible? Are all clients really willing to overlook substandard writing in exchange for dirt-cheap pricing?

5. I do not have a PayPal account.
To get one, I'll need a credit card. I do not have a credit card and it would be ridiculous for me to get one. I live in a province. The closest thing we have to a mall is a dark, two-storey building that is more warehouse than a store. Around here, we do not have ATM machines. What we have are passbooks. If I need to draw money from my account, I bring my passbook with me, fill out a withdrawal slip, and hand it to a teller. How could I have a PayPal account? How could I have a credit card? And why can't any client just pay over GaF or Elance?

6. I will not write for potatoes.
C'mon, $1 for 500 words? That's not a salary - that is charity! If that is all that a writer makes, I think I will be better off whoring. Even whores around these parts make more than $1 per article!

Two days ago, over at Elance, I placed a bid for $5 for a 300-word article. My bid was rejected and I was told (not too politely, mind you) that I have no business charging that sum because I am Asian. I was livid! I wanted to scream, "Now hold it right there, mister! I may be Asian but I probably know subject-verb agreement better than you do!"

I don't get it, I really don't. Everyone says the battle for humanity has been won; that Hitler is gone; that Mussolini is dead. Yet even in job marketplaces, I have obviously been slotted into that worst of writer minorities: 1) I'm Asian and 2) I'm a woman. Everyone assumes my writing is no good because I do not have a Westerner's zip code!

That is why this writer isn't writing - at least not under terms that are little better than highway robbery.