To follow literary fashion, to write for money, to censor your true feelings and thoughts or adopt ideas because they’re popular requires a writer to suppress the very promptings that got him or her writing in the first place. When you started writing, in high school or college, it wasn’t out of a wish to be published, or to be successful, or even to win a lovely award like the one you’re receiving tonight. It was in response to the wondrousness and humiliation of being alive. Remember?

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/12/jeffrey-eugenides-advice-to-young-writers.html#ixzz2GwkH1K5O

via Jeffrey Eugenidess Advice to Young Writers : The New Yorker.