false 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Mon Jun 16 14:51:55 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 19 14:58:23 -0700 2008
At one point she writes,

I was struggling to write, to keep house, help in the store, be a good mother, and yet improve my storytelling skills. And that decade was one of rejection slips. I would mutter as I cleaned house, "Emily Bronte didn't have to run the vacuum clearner. Jane Austin didn't have to do the cooking." p.155

I understand that person. I've been that person all my life.

The next page continues...

... And I felt that I was looked at askance because i spent so much time at the typewriter and yet couldn't sell what I wrote. I certainly wasn't pulling my weight financially. In my journal I wrote, "There is a gap in understanding between me and our friends and acquaintances. I can't quite understand a life without books and study and music and pictures and a driving passion. And they, on the other hand, can't understand why i have to write, why I am a writer. When, for instance, I say to someone that I have to get home to work, the assumption is that I mean housecleaning or ironing, not writing a book. I'm very kindly permitted to be a writer but not to take time in pursuing my trade." p. 156

This is the person I am now...

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