The love-affair of writing

When a love-affair is broken off, the heaviest blow is to the vanity of the one who is left. It is therefore reasonable to assume that, when a love-affair is beginning, the greatest source of satisfaction is also to the vanity.
The Unquiet Grave, by Cyril Connolly writing as Palinurus

I wonder if this quote applies to the love of writing. Does it start with adoration? The mother who pins your story to the fridge. The teacher who gives an A+ to your insipid, adolescent poetry. You are writing poetry for your first crush, the girl with narcolepsy who falls asleep on her friends’ backpacks during lunch. Is that where it starts? Trying to express your passion then becomes your passion?

Maybe it starts with a love for reading, and the moment when you begin to wonder if the words will ever love you back. And then you start writing and the thing itself becomes a source of endless fascination.