What does it take to become a software engineer?

So I m sort of at that age where college is right around the corner, and although I m not too tech savy, one career I m thinking about getting into is software engineering. Technology is the future after all and a lot of companies like Apple and Google give their employees pretty decent salaries. I know I don t have a lot of knowledge and computers and such, but I m a pretty fast learner...so my question is, what does it take to become one? Does it involve a lot of schooling and if so, what kind of classes would I need to be taking and what kind of degree do I wanna aim for to be a good candidate for these kinds of companies? Also, how well does the job pay and how time consuming is it? While I would enjoy this career path, I m also a fictional writer and would still like to continue that passion in my downtime at least until it s able to pay off. Please let me know!