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. corina kopf leaks 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.