Humans are driven by emotion (as much as we may not want to admit it). We go through cycles of motivation, of laziness, of optimism, of cynicism, of happiness, of sadness.
Just because we haven’t been consistently doing something our entire lives doesn’t mean it isn’t a part of who we are.
Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird when she was in her twenties. It won the Pulitzer Prize and she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. She’s now eighty-six and has yet to publish another book. Is she a “real writer”?
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was published over one hundred fifty years ago; it’s required reading in most college literature courses. Emily never published another book. Was she a real writer?
Margaret Mitchell only published one book too: Gone with the Wind. Same with J.D. Salinger and Catcher in the Rye.
My point is that—yes—writers write, obviously. But not all of the time, sometimes not even most of the time. There is no threshold a writer has to cross in order to be considered a “real writer.”
You are a writer if you say you are.
The Friendly Editor 