As writers, we can become fixated on the recognition of our work, validation from a source outside ourselves that what we have poured our soul into is good and worthy and true.

Yet it is often difficult to realize — and more so to accept — that whether or not a single word is ever read by another, what we write is already everything it should be before the first drop of ink is put to page. 

For the words inside us have been there since the beginning of time.

And their sole purpose is to be written.

They cannot be given, traded or penned by another. Because they are our words and only we, with the creative energy that brings ink to life, can give them meaning — remembering all the while that it doesn’t matter how many words one writes in a lifetime.

Just write the words that count, the ones within you.

Write the words of your soul.