One question I ask writing clients at the start of our engagement is, "Why are you writing this book?" I want to know what keeps them returning to the page over and over again. Understanding how my client is motivated helps me help them when the going gets tough (and it will!), and it helps my client understand their purpose.

I ask you this now, too. Why this book? Why are you the best person to bring this book into the world? And if you don't have a book on the burner, consider a more generalized question: Why do you write?

For a long time, I'm embarrassed to say, my own answers to these questions were squarely in fantasy land. I knew it, too, but I couldn't help myself. I dreamed of fame and earning a very good living from my writing. I dreamed of it even though I hadn't published a single book and despite the mountain of evidence stacked against such a fantastical dream.

More and more I'm realizing that my true reason for writing and where I derive most pleasure is simply following my curiosity. Everything else (readership, payment) is icing on the cake. At one time in my life I would have thought this was a copout—that a Real Writer is one that has the bylines, gets paid, wins the awards. But that view is so narrow and curmudgeonly and has had such a stultifying effect on my creativity that I am thrilled to have broken free from it.

Anyway, if you haven't thought about it lately, consider your own motivations for writing. Does your Why inspire you or hold you back?

Read.

Susan Orlean's new memoir, Joyride, is a book I want to press into every writer's hands. She has had an enviable career, so her descriptions of her experiences working with Robert Gottleib and Tina Brown have something of a fairytale quality to it, but she is also candid about her doubts and the struggles of the writing business even in the so-called heyday.

She writes about what drives her as a writer and how she approaches her subjects. I'm halfway through the book, and I'm inspired. I know you will be, too. Look for it at your library or favorite independent bookstore starting October 14.

Other recommended reading:

• ​The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem: "Sales track ... is an invisible force shaping contemporary literature."
• ​To understand what books are published, you must understand how books are sold​
• Brooke Warner on the response to Elizabeth Gilbert's latest memoir:

Keep writing,