She can always be a writer no matter what else she does in life -- teach, be a nurse, work in a library :), be a psychologist, fight in Afghanistan, work in a bakery or restaurant. Writing is something you just do, not that you "hope to do so" or "hope to become a writer" someday.
I am co-leader of a very productive and successful writers' group. One member is job hunting and has Asperger's (autism). Another member is on disability and is a busybody and writes essays, but her strength is fiction (and she claims she can't write fiction -- silly girl!). Another writes charming stories about her husband and daughter and other relatives and about places she's been and things she's done. Still another member is in his 60s and is retired and is writing his autobiography, mostly for his descendants. Another member writes about growing up in a dysfunctional family (his way to work through all the emotional pain he has suffered). A Romanian immigrant writes Christian and inspirational poetry in her native tongue and then painstakingly translates it into English for us. A young woman member is writing a vampire novel. One member recently had an IT book published by a major publisher and has been asked by them to write a book on online social networking. I've been published (and paid) for four books and one long article for a historical society, plus served as a columnist for a monthly magazine for two years. Meanwhile, I raised two kids and had a library career plus went to grad school.
Reading The Secret and going with its philosophy might be fun but has nothing to do with writing. If you're a writer, you write. You don't look for reasons to do it or excuses not to do it. You simply write. Maybe what you write stacks up in the back of the closet for a few years or fills up a drawer or two -- or ten.
Tell your friend to get her rear in gear and ask at her library if they sponsor a writers' group (and if they don't, who does). If there isn't one in her area, she can be the one who starts such a group. Every community has at least a dozen (or more) people in it who are writers and who want to share the joy. (I'll be glad to advise her on forming a group, if that's the case.)
There are so many outlets for writers nowadays -- traditional publishing, local company/business/school/church newsletters, the local weekly or daily newspapers, print-on-demand publishing, online publishing in blogs and web sites, to name a few. Blogs are the big thing right now. Shreve Stockton took on the care of an orphaned coyote pup in Wyoming, posted daily reports and photos on a blog that became a web site that became a best-selling book that may become a movie and will generate more books in the future (http://www.dailycoyote.net/). I've read blogs on everything -- cupcakes, dairy cow raising, gardening, child care, a dinner club, needlework, all kinds of crafts, dogs or cats or horses or a beloved barn owl (Stacey O'Brien's http://wesleytheowl.blogspot.com/). The writing journey begins with a single stroke of the pen or finger on a keyboard.
