“You don’t call yourself a writer because you have some free time and your heart is aching….
Writing is a serious activity, a profession. Not a pastime.”
Simone de Beauvoir quoted by Claudine Monteil in The Beauvoir Sisters, English translation © 2004 by Marjolijn de Jager.
The same is true of painting and acting.
It should mean the end of this blog…..
Young Woman Drawing by Marie-Denise Villers, 1801.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Image source: Wikipedia
Takes me back to the 1960’s, De Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus. Trying to comprehend ‘L’Etranger’ in French, and write a lucid essay about existentialist writers, also in French. Gave me headaches at 16…
Best wishes, Pete.
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It had better not be the end of this blog! When I had a literary agent (she retired!), she said to me, ‘Just because you haven’t yet been published, doesn’t mean you’re not a writer. You are a writer.’ Acting was still my main income (huh!) at the time.
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