Sometimes it overwhelms me how many people want to write. Who are they? Are they all as passionate about it as I am? Are they more passionate? Or do they just want to write because of all the “fame” and “money” involved?

I blame Hemingway. I really do. Maybe Jack London. Those writers in the early 20^th century who created macho myths about being writers because they didn’t want to look like nancy boys who liked pretty delicate verses.

Or maybe I blame Gertrude Stein for launching the first wide-scale publicity campaign for a book when she came to America promoting The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Or maybe Shakespeare for getting cozy with royalty. Or maybe all the kings and queens themselves who wrote–and published–for vanity’s sake.

Or Madonna. For thinking she can write children’s books.

In any case, someone, somewhere, made writing look like the intellectual equivalent of being a rock star. Writing became about being really smart, really rich, and downright legendary. Maybe a good sentence isn’t as sexy as a good guitar chord, but by golly, the idea of that sentence is.

Because of this, there is an entire industry telling people what they can do to! get! published! It’s something akin to the weight loss industry–lots of promises about finding that one magic trick to shortcut to the goal. And of course, the truth is, to get published you must employ discipline, drudgery, and faith for a long period of time. Just like you must do to lose weight.

In a perfect world, there would be a far smaller pool of wannabe writers than readers. In the 1930s, for example, more people read than wanted to write. Now, it seems like more people want to write than read. I have talked to plenty of creative writing majors who complain when they have to take an English class because they hate to read.

Here’s what I think: You have no business wanting to write a book unless you deeply love to read. Books have to be your life or you simply won’t succeed. This sounds harsh, but it is a practical suggestion. You have no idea what has been done–what is cliché, what is new, etc.–without reading. You have no layering of language and vocabulary in your subconscious to draw upon in your own work. So if you want to write and you don’t read, my advice is to write for your own pleasure and leave publishing up to people who do love books (and therefore know something about them).

Also: Writing is not going to make anyone a rock star. Steven King or Salman Rushdie are not rock stars. Oh yeah, I can see how someone might be confused. Rushdie is married to a supermodel and gets written up in Page Six. King is wealthy and famous and in a band with Amy Tan. But I bet they don’t feel like rock stars when they are sitting down at the keyboard. Writing is just too mundane and boring for that.

So when should you be a writer? When you feel that you haven’t experienced anything until you have put words to it. When you have so many thoughts and ideas that you will go nuts if you don’t put them down on paper. When it’s fun to be inside your imagination, and you think other people would agree. When you love language so much you can sit for 20 minutes debating which of two synonyms sound better in a particular sentence. When you have read much of the great literature out there and still, somehow, feel that you could have something to contribute to the conversation.

But most of all: When you can look at the fact that you will probably never be a Salman or a Steven, and in fact, you may just modestly publish your entire life and die forgotten–and yet, still, you want to get up every day and engage with words on the page. Because you have to. Because you aren’t really good for much else. And because without it, you wouldn’t know your own life. You wouldn’t even recognize yourself.