What do you need to be a writer?

So there it is, the question. What does one need to be a writer?

I suspect that a story is it… maybe access to a rock… a lamp? How about one single reader?

That is the easy and cute answer. Oddly, cute comes close to the truth, but I shall pass that over for the time being. Mostly you are a writer, and the rest is just how your are a writer. The stories are there and they flow like blood, so it helps to be wounded or have stigmata, but it is not essential.

This “flowing” explains why at the conclusion of writing a story one tends to feel drained a little bit.

Another useful device is a community like Pan Historia where you get to see what your work looks like, and how people receive it.