I wonder how many things in life we do for a particular reason, while the real benefit is something completely different and unexpected.

I’m reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, which has great advice for writers and anyone who’s creating stuff. She talks about writing like that. While you might start out writing to get published, you realize that the real reward is the writing itself.

I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that its cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part… The act of writing turns out to be its own reward. – Anne Lamott

Time to go make my morning coffee…