It's got such an allure. Publication. What a pretty, productive, once-dreamy term, which has now lost its soft edges.

Once upon a time, every writer was a youth scribbling on the welcoming lines of a journal-style notebook, imagining their name on a byline. As they enter the academic world, and most especially as they advance in and beyond graduate school, to be published takes on a different meaning and draws for different reasons.

Because suddenly, publication matters, and for a specific end other than sharing ideas with the world. To churn out more articles, thoughts, and studies, especially novel ones, is the way to prestige and advancement. Words and ideas are money.

This occurs on every level, of course. Even as undergraduates, young writers often feel the need (not even necessarily the strong desire) to create blog post after article after online entry to build a repertoire of writing samples and showcase publicly visible writing.

But when this occurs, what happens is that as the public and intellectual community is slammed with an intense quantity of writing, writers and scholars themselves lose conviction that their writing is vital. When publication history becomes currency, the words themselves mean a little less.

Don't get me wrong, nobody would ever write total crap and lots of wonderful ideas are making it onto paper. But sometimes a self-check is certainly in order.

Are we writing because we need to write more, or are we writing because something must be said?

Writing works in much the same way as conversation, in both public and academic settings. Chatter is fine, and we appreciate getting our voices in the air and noticed. But something real is created when we wait, reflect, learn, and say that which is truly, truly important and needed, when we say what we desperately want to say, when we say what we feel with absolute conviction that we must say.

Who are we writing for, anyway?