flâneur

"Should I Just Give Up on My Writing?"

askpolly.substack.com · 3,334 words · saved by 1 readers

If your writing is just a means to an end, you'll struggle to stand out.

Brown and Tan Leaves (1928) by Georgia O’Keeffe Last night I was talking to my husband about the pros and cons of newsletters, and I remembered this column about an almost-50-year-old writer who’s afraid she’ll never break through. When this letter originally ran on The Cut in September of 2015, I was finishing my final draft of How to Be a Person in the World. My daughters were still small - six and eight. I remember sitting at my desk early in the morning, before the kids were awake, relishing the thought of myself as an old nobody who loves her work. In the six years since then, I’ve…

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