Oh, I always think like this, as if writing is a zero-sum game or something … would I work more on writing plays or novels (which I hold up as, you know, the “real” things to write) if I wasn’t always writing in my personal journal? Or on a blog? Or sending long emails to my out-of-town friends? And who knows, maybe we would …. it’s the same with reading, too … could I finish more of the literary greats if I wasn’t consumed in newspapers and culture magazines and blogs? Well, yeah, probably.

I like to think it doesn’t matter one way or another, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it does, and on any given day the anxiety/guilt over what I’m not writing/reading can get overwhelming …

I mourn Tillie Olsen too. Before she died, I heard someone read Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” and it made me think that I wanted to read “As I stand here ironing,” again. And, fuck me, I’d completely forgotten about “Silences”.

yrs,
B. Dagger Lee

I always feel jealous of you writer types. I hate writing and storytelling, as I find that I just don’t have anything to say. I mean, I have things to say, but nothing really meaningful and nothing worth writing down. I’ve never been in the slightest bit imaginative with anything except cooking, although I’ve always wished I were more of a creative type. I love to read (and I’ll read pretty much anything), but writing is incredibly difficult for me. In fact, that’s part of the reason I didn’t finish grad school, because a PhD has to write, even in the sciences (I got a MS in physics), regularly for their living. And I just can’t do it–it’s a horrible chore for me and I’m no good at it either.

I somehow forced her story out of him, little by little–it clearly pained him. In short, this woman was exceptionally talented. She went on to learn everything she possibly could from her father, and won numerous awards, branched out into sculpture (which he didn’t do), had a few exhibits of her own by the age of 19, was starting to get recognized as one of the most promising young artists of her generation, etc.

Then at some point, abruptly, she dropped from college (she was studying engineering, of all things), and ran away with some guy. The details were fuzzy from then on, but all I know for certain is that she basically gave up her artistic career, and, years later, she eventually married a German guy, settled in some small German town and promptly had three kids.

She would send her old father some pictures for Christmas–in them, a stout, Germanic-looking hausfrau was busy holding on to her tots. As far as my friend knew, she never painted again–well, except maybe as a hobby.

That story has haunted me ever since, as absolutely My Biggest Fear. Women have particular challenges when taking up a creative career, and often they don’t have people (husbands, parents, mentors) who back them up. They also tend to be blamed for their choices at the same time as those choices are basically made for them by society (see my painter friend, who couldn’t shake some resigned accusatory tone off his voice when talking about his daughter, at the same time as this woman did the ‘right’ thing by the society’s conservative standards).

I’ve lost track of my creative ambitions myself, why, getting married and busy following my husband around for his career, but I’ve started to remember them, and what you wrote here is so, so true, and again, so haunting. And you’re already 10 times the writer I could every hope to be (been reading you for several years, since Feministe,and I know what I’m saying), and I will truly, honest-to-God, buy that book of yours when you decide to write it. You’re a great inspiration to me, and I hope you will, truly, really, write, because that’s what you’re meant to do.

Oh, and your blog writing: NOT insignificant at all, au contraire. Just thought I’d let you know!