In a touching memoir of his relationship with his father (and the suitcase of writing that his father bestowed upon him and asked to read after he died) that was delivered as a Nobel Lecture and then published in The New Yorker, Orhan Pamuk tries to get at the heart of what a writer is. (Pamuk won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature).
Here is one section of his description of a writer, as he sees it:

“A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words.” — Orhan Pamuk, in The New Yorker (Dec. 25 2006/Jan.1 2007 edition)

I like that description because it touches a deep chord with me and my own personal writing process. I know it is not the same for everyone and Pamuk even acknowledges that for his father, the writing process was completely different — more social in nature.

Peace (with words),
Kevin