One of the most interesting questions you will ever ask yourself as a writer is this: what drives you?

Some writers are driven by fame or money. Others are driven by the need for employment. Still others are driven by a need to create.

All of those have their place. Yet, at our core, there must be something deeper, stronger, and more primal.

Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, can help us understand what’s going on here. She said, “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself … It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”

What she’s saying is that we are all working out a deep, God-given urge to write. We may write for the market, for clients, for praise, or for ego… but at the end of the day, we all have a deep, divine need to write. It’s who we are as writers, and it’s perhaps the most important thing that defines us.

If you’re feeling grumpy or irritable, take a look at how much you’ve been writing. The only way to deal with that divine discontent is by following through with your God-given purpose to put words on the page.