Comments on: For A Fulfilling Life, Beware of “Wisdom”

By: by Mark

by Mark — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:54:20 +0000

Ah yes, A Room of One’s Own. Thanks, Peggy, I thought that might be the place to look. I consider this a good prompt for me to get better versed in Woolf. ~Mark

By: Peggy

Peggy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:49:41 +0000

Mark,

She talked about it in “A Room of One’s Own.” She postulated that women (though I believe it’s true for everyone) needed two things to write: A room of one’s own, and five hundred pounds a year (of course, we’d have to adjust that for inflation and conversion to the US Dollar).

By: by Mark

by Mark — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:19:32 +0000

@Peggy – Appreciated your comment. Do you recall where Woolf addressed the notion of fiction vs. income? I’d love to find that. ~Mark

By: Peggy

Peggy — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:06:29 +0000

Thank you. The same can as easily and truly be said of novels (my preferred form of fiction-writing, though I have written screenplays).

I’ve only recently come to the understanding that Vollman articulated so nicely. I gave up on the idea that if I write a novel I *must* attempt to have it published. Now, I want to write the story that pleases me, and after I finish it, *if* it’s good enough, then decide whether or not to submit it.

This, of course, is much easier to do if you never plan to make your living from writing fiction (which I never did). Fiction, I think, must remain separate from the necessity of earning an income, as Virginia Woolf suggested.

Thanks again for some reassurance that I’m not alone in my sanity.

By: Smith-Kingsley

Smith-Kingsley — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:11:54 +0000

Thanks for quoting Minghella on Minghella. God, I love that book.