This morning, while attempting to do anything but finals-appropriate activities, I rebegan a book by Robin McKinley. I used to believe that if I wrote anything for young adults, it would be exactly like something she wrote. I also thought that I was exactly like her heroines: I couldn't sew, I couldn't dance, my embroidery was abysmal, and I lacked seemingly all necessary feminine wiles. Somehow all her heroines got men in the end--most turned out beautiful as well.
I never doubted that I would turn out as well, that my fairy tale would come, but today I realized with surprise as I read that I had much less in common with her heroines than I had supposed. If a magical closet handed me a dress covered in jewels, I would at least try it on for size. Clumsy or not, swirling and twirling--and performing above all, appeals to me. I have sewed some awful things in my day, but I can sew (almost) in a straight line. In short, I enjoy crafts which many heroines seem to shun. I say this not to tout my own abilities but because it was a surprising realization that I no longer share my heroines' interests.
Perhaps, I muse, intellectual women writers who create female characters have a sense of apprehension about endorsing typically feminine activities, since who wants to be Better Homes and Garderns circa 1958? Now, I think, if I write something for young adults, I might try to have a heroine who is not a tomboy--since I think one can be an imperfect, dynamic, and interesting character (if I may flatter myself), and still enjoy embrodering pincushions on occasion.
A farewell to any hope of productive uses of time
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Dear Time:
I tried. It's not you; it's me. I made a real effort to make most of time (though no longer a virgin take that Robert Herrick)--gathering rosebuds while I may--had I but world enough and time--carpe the diem, and all that, but I just don't see this "use time wisely thing" working out. I have started a blog. Pretty soon I will be eating dinner in my underwear, blogging away. Perhaps I should set a time limit, for at my back I always hear--an incoherent paragraph with far too many allusions to 16thish centuryish poets appear. I hope, dear time, to not waste you one day, but to devour every minute. Perhaps, indeed, this blog will help me do it.
Sincerely ABE
For all my lamenting and breaking up with Time, I am glad to have joined the blogging world--if only for my own benefit, and that of my bfb ABE.
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