What do you want?

An aggressive title, maybe, but an important question.

Success in writing doesn't happen by accident. At some point in their career, every writer has asked themselves this question. What is it you actually want from this act of writing? What is it that you truly crave from it?

I know that the polite, acceptable answer (particularly, it seems, if you're female) is, 'I want writing to be a fulfilling act in itself. I don't care about success or adulation. I write for its own sake.' But is this t...