There is a difference between being a writer and being an author. Today, through various web sites, blogs, ebooks and self-publishing companies, anyone can publish anything, thus laying claim to being an author. Writers have to write, we have no choice. Yes, I may be a bit presumptuous in calling myself a writer. I’ll get to that later.
Most of the "writers" that I know personally, are also voracious readers. From a young age we read everything we could get our greedy little hands on. Through those midnight flights into other worlds, something caught us, laid its seed in our minds and somewhere along the line sparked our desire to create fiction, poetry, prose or songs. I suppose that some are driven and inspired to create the next great treatise on Advanced Mathematics. Not me, there is a reason why I'm a liberal arts type.
Either through reading everything we could, or struggling with a droning professor in a 7:40 English Lit. lecture we learned that words and phrases have voice and a rhythm. If you can’t sense it and express your stories by weaving your words and phrases together you can never be called a writer.
Earlier I said that as writers, we had no choice, that we had to write. Here is the presumptuous part. One cannot proclaim writer status for oneself. Only after others have read and reflected upon your words can they determine that you have indeed found a voice and a rhythm worthy of being called a writer.
It took me a couple of trips around the block to get into the neighborhood of a point, but I've arrived now. Regardless of one’s level of education, from a PhD in English Literature to a fourth grade education, if you can’t make your words dance and entertain readers, you are a struggling, wannabe writer. However, when it happens, when someone reacts, when they look up from your words in stunned silence, or grinning from ear to ear, when they ask for more you’ll know that you’ve arrived.
I'm fortunate enough to have been labeled a writer by my peers.
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