You could be Joel, even if your name is Jenny. Or Julie, Jillian, Jim, Jane, Joe. You are working on a first draft and small wonder you're unhappy. If you lack confidence in setting one word after another and sense that you are stuck in a place from which you will never be set free, if you feel sure that you will never make it and were not cut out to do this, if your prose seems stillborn and you completely lack confidence, you must be a writer. If you say you see things differently and describe your efforts positively, if you tell people that you "just love to write," you may be delusional.
Thus writes John McPhee in the April 29th issue of The New Yorker, in a short piece entitled "Draft No. 4," second paragraph. If you perchance fit into the demographic described in this entry title, you should beg, borrow, or purloin a copy of this issue. The article does more than a little justice to the experience of someone who mangles words about, either to earn a dollar, or just takes on the challenge as a diversion of life. Or wants an unnecessary midlife crisis. Go get a copy; I double-dog-dare-ya'.
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