I'm open to the possibility that there's such a thing as talent: an inborn potential for doing something better than people who don't have that inborn potential. However, talent is at most a potential, not a developed gift. Even talented people have to do the work and learn the skills before they can achieve anything.
Furthermore, nobody knows whether you have talent until it manifests itself. You don't know; I don't know; your friends don't know; your writing teachers don't know. All you can do is work and see what comes out.
The first stuff you write probably won't be good—someone once said we all have 10,000 lousy pages inside of us and we have to write those pages before we can see if there's any good stuff underneath. I believe that more than I believe in talent.
So don't jump to conclusions about whether you have the potential to be a writer.
Nobody knows until you've done it...so get to work.
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Copyright © 2001, James Alan Gardner