You’d better look at Justine Larbalestier’s blog on your identity as a writer. It’s very thought-provoking and so are the comments (in fact, all of her blog is fantastic). Do you think you’re a writer? Does a writer have to be published? I’ve always thought that writing is some sort of condition that you’re probably born with. The only way this condition can be managed, and give you a peaceful quality of life, is to write. The trickier bit is to consider whether you need to be published or whether the act of writing is satisfying enough. I’m not sure on that one as I seem to write in expectation of being published. If that expectation was a dead-end, I don’t know what form of writing I would do. I’ve never been a journal-keeper: I find that I lie too much in them. (I keep picture journals of interesting newspaper articles and bits and pieces but I don’t write in them.) Maybe I’d stop writing? Maybe I’d wither away?