I didn’t win the book prize. Neither was I one of the three finalists. I would like to say that dreams about book awards, six-figure advances or Oprah sprinkling her magic dust over me have never been part of my fantasy world. I would like to say that but I must confess – I have more than once pictured myself whispering, Yes, I am, to the question at Nordstrom’s, Are you looking for anything special, and going on to explain, I am looking for an outfit to wear with Oprah.

It’s disappointing not to win, just as my heart breaks a little bit every time one of my stories gets rejected. At such times, all those bestselling authors, with their lovely country homes and their good hair, seem to mock me. Their success slaps me like one of those wet snapped towels and I hear them saying over and over again, Why on earth does she keep writing?

The only course of action at this point is to cry. Little good will come from fighting it. Crying and feeling sorry for myself, which I have become quite good at, eventually make those nasty, successful writers go away. I suspect it’s because they can’t stand listening to me. And, finally, neither can I.

That’s when I remember why I write. Like the millions of other writers who don’t win prizes, I write because I have to write. There is a place I think of as a garden that I’m sometimes able to enter – thanks be to God, Allah, Buddha or the Great Spirit. When that happens, and I’m writing away, my mind drifting happily and breathing in those sweet garden scents, there is no place on earth I would rather be. It is the reward of writing that keeps me going back to that place. And it’s what keeps all those other writers most folks in the world don’t know about writing.

I think, for instance, about one of my favorite poets, James Schuyler. Terribly shy, Schuyler did his first public reading in New York very late in his life. He was so nervous during the reading, he barely looked up. Writing about him now, I think of how reading his poems almost always makes me cry.

 While Schuyler did win several awards, in his lifetime he was nearly always overshadowed by the more outgoing Frank O’Hara. When people think of the group of poets that made up the New York School, Schuyler is probably the one they don’t even know about.

Or I am reminded of the late May Sarton, who was disappointed again and again when her books received bad reviews. And yet I believe there is no better book about the joys and sorrows of being a woman writer than Sarton’s, Journal of a Solitude. It is a book I have recommended to many women struggling to find their way into that writing garden and nearly always am told that Sarton was exactly what they needed.

In our current climate of instant celebrity, it is hard to hold onto the old-fashioned notion that creativity is a reward in itself. But given the simple math, there can only be a small number of winners. Loving to write has to remain the real reason for staying in the game.