If I really had something to say, I'd be able to find my own voice to say it with, and not borrow everyone else's. I remember hearing a quotation of Goethe's somewhere, that "there must be a man behind the sentence". There was more, but that's what stuck in my head. It means such a tangle of complicated things to me that I have a difficult time even beginning to articulate them. Of course it means you must be sincere -- but it means far more than that. It's about being a whole person. It's about finding the part of the Truth that quickens your soul and giving it to the world in as many beautiful ways as possible.

It means you have to find meaning in your own life before you can ever hope to give meaning to other people's.

*edit* Thought of a good way to describe it. I feel about writing the way a woman feels who really wants to have children, but hasn't found the right man yet. I want it mainly for the "perks" -- the exultant feeling that attends the strong, steady flow of words from mind to paper, the pride of creating something beautiful -- because until you reach the specific point in your life when such a vocation could come to fruition and cease to be merely an abstract longing, you can't want it for completely the right reasons. To truly want it for the right reasons (which means to appreciate it for what it IS) you must have already found your message, because part and parcel of the desire to write is the desire to communicate something important. Otherwise it's useless, because words without communication are nonsense.