I say write for the story first, yourself second, and the reader only as an afterthought. This is how we keep the door open for more stories. This is how we surrender to that which wants to gush through us. And it doesn’t have to have anything to do with writing. We cannot experience a story unless it comes through us and we cannot express a story without letting it come through us. We are merely an opening through which life flows. Any other role we might hold onto is a barrier to the flow that makes us what we are.