How do you know if creative writing is the career for you? When you try and answer that question, you have to consider what it is that you want to do in writing, and what your ultimate goals are. If you are seeking to become the next A-List author, with a million dollar advance, the road is narrow to the top of the mountain, but as Adam Ant once sang, "There is always room at the top, don't let them tell you that there is not." What I think that 80s icon was getting at was that if you have talent and drive, you can get there, even if people tell you it might be impossible. Thus, if you really want to be that A-List author with appearances on Oprah and adoring fans by the millions, set that goal and go for it - you'd not be happy if you tried accounting.

But suppose you do not have a burning desire to be consistently on the New York Times Bestseller List. You are just thinking of a more modest career, one that pays the bills and involves writing full-time. How do you know if a creative writing career is right for you? Read on for the three things that are "must have's" for a writer:

First, you have to love writing and words a lot. If you do not like to read, or to combine words into great sentences, then you probably will not have the drive and fortitude to sustain a writing career. Writing is all about combining words, and you need to love to read words and to put them together in interesting ways to be a writer.

Second, you have to be comfortable with solitude. Being a writer means that you spend a considerable amount of time alone writing. That is the nature of the work. Sure, there can be contact with other writers and editors regularly, but every professional writer has to spend daily - or nearly daily - time in focused concentration with just the words on the page.

Third, you have to be able to withstand criticism and rejection. Writers are criticized all the time, and if you are thin skinned this is probably not the career for you. That said, if you embrace criticism as a way to learn things, even if you do not agree or make changes to your work based on the criticism, and you use the rejections to spur you on, you can succeed in writing.

If you have the three things mentioned above: A love of words; being comfortable with solitude; and being able to embrace criticism and withstand rejection, you have the makings of a writer. Finally, if you have had no other job or career that has made you feel as happy and as at home as you do when you are writing, then perhaps writing is your path. If that is the case, then explore the different opportunities in writing. Besides becoming a novelist, you could write non-fiction, journalism, or even do corporate or copywriting and earn money while pursuing other writing interests. In short, use your writing skills to earn money to be able to write more creatively, to buy time for your personal writing.

Knowing whether creative writing is the path for you is subjective - the answer has to come from within. The thing is, people that are creative writers know internally that it is what they are meant to do. When that is the case, no one can dissuade them anyway, so embrace writing is that is your path, and just get on with it.