Dear Literary Ladies,
Sometimes I wonder what I’m more afraid of—failure, or success? In its own way, the prospect of success seems daunting. And I know I’m not alone. Did any of you find the idea of actually succeeding as scary and incomprehensible as I do?
I never expected any sort of success with [To Kill a] Mockingbird. I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers, but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.
—Harper Lee, from a 1964 interview
Can success be as daunting as failure?
Posted by
Nava Atlas
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
4 comments:
I dearly wish Harper Lee would have written more. I love To Kill a Mockingbird.
I do, too. It's one of my favorite novels, so unpretentious and pitch-perfect. I love the movie, too, but not as much as the book.
Writing is so very personal. It's frightening to put oneself out there in words that appear in print or cyberspace for all the world to see. I think that's why most writers fear success and failure in equal measure. The entire process is concurrently exquisite pleasure and unremitting agony.
I just happened upon this site while looking for recipes and you women are so courageous and energetic, I love this site because it speaks to me personally. I am always beginning over and over to write. I am busy with a 3yr. young granddaughter and boy oh boy, going back to school and looking for work is so time consuming, I hope I can find inspiration to past beginning and move on to part of my memoirs. Boy, do I appreciate this site and I will check it out some more, by the way, I love the recipes and stories about our fresh foods and versatile way of cooking. Thank you Nava.
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