But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. ~ Ann Lamott, Bird by Bird

Lamott says she’s managed to write nearly every day of her adult life “without impressive financial success.” She would do it all over again, though—mistakes, doldrums, breakdowns, and everything else. It wasn’t until her fourth book came out that she stopped being a starving artist. Few writers make enough money to live on, so that can’t be the motivating factor. Curiously enough, Lamott tells her students that when her writer friends are working, “they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time.” When they’re writing well, she says, they feel that they are living up to something.

Do you sense this as well?