Is there a contrast between the truth of our lives & the story that we tell of our existence?

Yes, I think there is. Yet you can’t provide an unbiased perspective on your own life, and neither can anyone else, so that gap is always there even when not intended to be. I think this gap is widened by people’s choices though – because everyone makes a narrative out of their life. It might just be in turning experiences into anecdotes, but when George Orwell talked about the internal monologue he had in his early twenties, of how he narrated his own life as he lived it, I was surprised to see how he associated this with his interest in writing. I never thought that other people didn’t do it – because I do it. Not all the time, but often.  I thought everyone else did, because I know plenty of people who do, people who don’t consider themselves writers (although I have no way of knowing whether they write in their free time or not). Everyone sees themselves as the primary focus of everything because our own perspective is the only one completely available to us. So I assumed that it was also common for therefore see things as a narrative in which we were the protagonist (not necessarily hero).

If I were going to ask people to respond to this (no point, I doubt this will get comments but even then it would still only be commented on by other writers who’ll be predisposed to this practice) I’d be interested to know whether this is really as uncommon as Orwell made it sound. 

No pristine environment

How is it that I became a writer?

First off, in primary school, there were yearly anthology prizes, and a creative writing club.

In secondary school, there was another creative writing club, but much less successful. There were creative assignments too, but it was a much more academic environment. Creativity was encouraged, but through the school's massive art department. Probably why I started writing only poetry from age 14 on - poems could be kept to myself and didn't seem to require an audience the way a story does.

I have also been to some creative writing courses before uni, at Arvon centres. The first one was at Moniack Mhor, outside Inverness. It was a writing poetry about Nature course, and everything was wonderful and easy and inspirational and I wrote loads, some of which I still like. It was such a great environment, with a supportive group, that I felt like I'd finally got it, and that I could say good-bye to Imposter Syndrome from there. (these hopes sadly never materialised, but it was from this point on that I felt I might consider myself a writer).

'no writer emerges from childhood into a pristine environment, free from other people's biases about writers'.

I haven't had too many problems with this, it's only really shown up in two ways: everyone suggesting I should think about journalism, and and everyone secretly thinking that a creative writing degree, and writing as a profession, is instable, unecessarily mystical, and deeply suspect. As I am also considered these things by enough people the second doesn't bother me.

Part of my interest in Stephen King relates to this, in observing his readership and how he's considered the current 'down-to-earth' writer of the people. Everyone should take a look at his official forums, even though they're not very active, and read some of the comments that get left there.

Is the writer, as an artist special? if so, how?

My automatic reaction is 'no'. There are plenty of writers who I considered special in themselves, but the process itself isn't. The output is like everything else - 90% and 10% good. It's because nearly everyone is literate - and we don't have the filter and rating systems of galleries like the art world does - that everything about writing seems mundane and leads people to be skeptical about what writers do. However, I think that's still more sensible than the right brain's self-mystification.