The 10,000 hour rule, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, says that:
the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours
Now, to be a good writer, you need to be a very good reader, writer and editor.
Most of us have been reading books since we were kids, and easily have tens of thousands of hours reading practice. Yet, most readers don't become good writers.
Similarly, everyone has written emails, formal documents, maybe even a few short stories. Yet most people still suck at writing.
So how does the 10,000 hour rule apply to writing? What do we need to practice, to become experts at writing?
Answer
As everyone has said already, writing is ultimately the key. The more you write the better you will be at it.
But I would like to also address the reading aspect of your question. You are right that most people, at some point in their lives, will have read 10,000 hours worth. But how many people think critically about it? How many people say, "Wow, I liked that, but why did I like that?" Most people get through their entire 10,000 hours of reading very passively. Even avid readers who are never without a book can often never take the active role and really digest what they are consuming.
Think about critics (literary or film (or food or software or mountain climbing equipment)). The longer someone has been reviewing widgets, the better they are going to be. But that's not just because they have seen a lot of widgets (though that helps); it's because they have thought critically about every single widget they have come across.
If you write a hundred emails a day, but don't really think about it, you won't improve. But if you write a hundred emails and make active decisions during each one, then you will become an email master.
One more thing: Just a quick quote from Stephen King's On Writing:
"If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."
That is all.
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