I have never been published. To be fair, I am quite young, much younger than most people on this site. However, I often feel as though I'm running out of time. Writing means that my ideas will remain on this earth; if not longer than I live, at least longer than I believe in them.

Therefore, to be published means that someone else values my ideas enough to put money behind them, and believes that others will as well. Validation from others in that form would be a sweet thing.

It would also mean that I could (perhaps exclusively) trade ideas for money, which admittedly occurs in just about every white-collar profession, but I think with writing it happens in its purest form.