We Need to Have A Talk About Writing...

Please, can we set aside the venom and the name calling? It's not necessary to dismiss my life experience, as you have done, or toss about nonsequitirs like "there's no such thing as a soul mate" and then base an argument on it. Analogy is a basic method of human intelligence and if you choose to ridicule it as a premise, then perhaps we have nothing to discuss.

By soul-deadening I may have been a bit poetic. I meant, "My job as a night cashier drives me to consider suicide and spitting in the face of armed robbers." Others find it is a fine job; that was the point. If you wish, I can ask Doctor Clark, my professor, what would be the appropriate technical term.

Your operational definition -- technical term taken from my classes -- of the construct we call 'writer' is good for those who wish to assign work. It's not so good for those of us wishing to choose a career. Yes of course we have many capabilities, but "I am a writer" is different from "I can write." I can also tinker with cars, but I will be almost as sorry if I pursue that as a career, as I was if I let this job be the end of me.

It might not be difficult for everybody, but it's a lot easier to go to the bookstore than to type it out, even if you are the Mozart of writing. Unless you get something other than a finished product out of writing, you should not do it. That's my definition of a writer: somebody who should write because they get something they need that they can't get, as easily or as reliably, anywhere else. That doesn't mean that the process will be easy or difficult, only that they need to do it themselves. Otherwise, buy a book or hire a ghostwriter.

In your case, may I recommend something by Ayn Rand or Aristotle?