And I Quote II

This is one of my favorites. It's actually taped to the top of my frustration-box (aka: computer)

"You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have asked others before. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are disturbed when certain editors reject your efforts. Now (since you have allowed me to advise you) I beg you to give all that up. You're looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all-ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night; must I write?" -Rainer Rilke: Letters To A Young Poet

And of course the answer is-- yes. Writers cannot untangle the act of writing from their deepest longings, they cannot look at beauty without compartmentalizing it with language, and they cannot resist the urge to create and share from the depth of their own imagination. -me