Maybe my theory of meter will be helpful to people. It turns out that helping is the main thing. If you feel that you have a use, if you think that your writing furthers life or truth in some way, then you keep writing. But if that feeling stops, you have to find something else to do. Or die, I guess. Or mow the lawn, or go somewhere and do something, like visit a historic house, or clean up a room, or teach people something that you think is worth knowing.

— Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist