At the time of writing, I don't write for my friends or myself, either; I write for
it, for the pleasure of
it. I believe if I stopped to wonder what So-and-so would think, or what I'd feel like if this were read by a stranger, I would be paralyzed. I care what my friends think, very deeply—and it's only after they've read the finished
thing that I really can rest, deep down.
--Eudora Welty, interviewed in Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, p. 162. (1972)