”El que no sabe pa’ dónde va, cualquier camino le sirve.”
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. Have you ever felt that way about your writing? Like you’re moving but not quite sure toward what?
I’ve been thinking about this since a few days ago at the Feria Internacional del Libro in Santo Domingo, standing in line at Café Santo Domingo. I recognized her, a TikToker I’d been following, and said hi. You know how those book fair encounters go. You plan for a quick hello and suddenly you’re deep into a conversation that rearranges your thinking.
She told me about the novel she’s working on, and we talked about it for a while, the way you do when you meet another person navigating the creative life in unexpected places. Then she mentioned her political aspirations for the DR, and I’ll be honest with you, I responded with skepticism. I’d seen her post about it on her account, but I wasn’t sure how serious she was. It felt like one of those things people say, another dream in a long list of dreams.
That’s when she said something that’s been living in my mind rent-free ever since.
“The most important thing in life is not your time or your discipline,” she told me, completely unbothered by my doubt. “It’s finding your purpose. Once you know what that is, everything else falls into place.”
I sat there at Café Santo Domingo, my cafecito getting cold in my hand, surrounded by the beautiful chaos of the feria, and felt something shift. Because as the Executive Director of the Dominican Writers Association, I spend my days in conversation with writers in the US, in the DR, everywhere our diaspora has planted roots. I mentor them, guide them through their publishing dreams, help them navigate the maze of craft and submission and platform-building. And here’s what I realized in that moment: I’d been so focused on helping writers manage their time and build their discipline that I’d been skipping over the most essential question.
Why are you doing this at all?
You know that feeling when someone says something simple and your whole chest gets tight because you realize you’ve been asking the wrong questions? That’s what happened to me standing in that café line.
Think about the people in your life who move through their work with purpose, the tías who cook without recipes because they know exactly who they’re feeding and why, the teachers who never seem burned out because they’re clear about their mission, the artists who keep creating despite every obstacle. The discipline follows the purpose, not the other way around.
This is what I see happening in our workshops and salons. Writers come to me with questions about craft, how do I structure this chapter, what’s wrong with my dialogue, should I write in first person or third? These are good questions, necessary questions. But underneath them is usually something else, something they haven’t quite articulated yet: What am I trying to say? Why does this story need to exist? What am I actually doing here?
This is what we don’t talk about enough in writing spaces. We talk about showing versus telling, about character arcs and narrative tension, about query letters and submission strategies. We create bingo cards of writing goals, and yes, I made one for all of you this year. But we skip over the foundational question: Why are you doing this at all?
And I don’t mean the surface answers we give at literary events when someone asks what we write about. I mean the deep why, the purpose that gets you out of bed when your day job has already exhausted you, the reason you keep revising that same chapter for the fifteenth time, the thing that makes you believe your voice matters when the rejections pile up.
For some writers, that purpose is preserving stories before they disappear. For others, it’s creating the books they never got to read as children. Maybe it’s bearing witness to your community’s experiences, or making sense of your own complicated histories, or simply because you have something burning inside that won’t let you rest until you put it on the page.
I think about the writers who come to our Sunday Salon, how you gather every week with your different projects and dreams. Some are working on memoirs about migration, others on children’s books featuring Dominican protagonists, still others on poetry that captures our particular way of seeing the world. The genres are different, the skill levels vary, but there’s something shared underneath, a sense that your words need to exist, that your stories deserve space.
When I work with writers one-on-one, I’ve started asking this question earlier in the process. Not just “what are you working on?” but “why this story?” Not just “what’s your timeline?” but “what are your publishing goals?, what would it mean to you to see this published?” The answers reveal everything. They show me who’s going to push through the hard parts and who’s going to give up when the first rejection arrives. They show me who needs encouragement and who needs a reality check. They show me who’s found their purpose and who’s still searching for it.
That TikToker, the one with the novel and the political dreams that made me skeptical? She knows her purpose. She’s not trying to be just one thing because she understands that all of it, the content creation, the novel, the political work serves the same deep why. Once you know that, the discipline becomes easier. Not easy, but easier. You’re not forcing yourself to do something arbitrary; you’re answering a call.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. You’ll wander from writing advice to writing advice, from one productivity system to another, always feeling like you’re not doing enough because you’re measuring yourself against someone else’s destination.
But when you know your purpose? Suddenly you can tell which roads actually lead somewhere you want to go. You can discern which writing opportunities align with your vision and which ones are just distractions dressed up as possibilities. You can be patient with your own process because you’re not racing to some arbitrary finish line, you’re building something that matters to you, con calma y propósito.
I found my purpose years ago, it’s helping writers like you understand yours. It’s creating spaces where Dominican voices can develop and thrive. It’s connecting you to resources and opportunities and, most importantly, to each other. Every workshop I organize, every publishing guide I share, every writer I mentor it all serves that same deep why. And because I know that purpose, the discipline follows. The late nights with my team planning retreats, the grant applications, the endless coordination, none of it feels like burden because it’s all in service of something I believe in deeply.
During one of our upcoming Sunday Writers Salon, I want us to sit with this question together. Not the practical questions about craft or submission strategies, those have their place, and we’ll get to them. But first, the essential question: What is your purpose as a writer? What makes you keep showing up to the page? What story are you trying to tell, and why does it need to be told?
Come ready to write from that deep place. Bring your uncertainty, your doubts, your half-formed answers. We’ll make space for all of it, the way our families make space at the table for everyone, even when we don’t have everything figured out.
Because here’s what I’ve learned after years of working with writers: the craft improves with practice, the submissions get easier with experience, the platform builds over time. But none of it sustains you if you don’t know why you’re doing it. Purpose is the foundation. Everything else is just technique.
Here’s A Writing Prompt:
Write for ten minutes without stopping, beginning with this phrase: “I write because...” Don’t overthink it. Let your hand move across the page and see what comes up. You might surprise yourself with what you discover when you’re not trying to sound writerly or impressive. Just honest.
Nos vemos pronto!
Angy
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Loved this!
Nos vemos pronto.