I also found Hippocampus Magazine, and in a section on “The Writing Life,” I came across “How I Joined the Working Class & Yet Also Maintained My Sanity and Lofty Literary Goals; or How Following Virginia Woolf’s Instructions is Tricky.” After quoting Woolf about “money and a room,” the author, Hilary Meyerson, starts off by saying “Women writers just love old Ginny,” following with some observations about solitude and space for writing. (A writer friend with whom I shared it said, “Ginny? What effrontery!”) But she takes an interesting approach, the dilemma of too much solitude. “When the writer’s world shrinks to a small sphere,” she risks becoming boring.
But, of course, the other ingredient is money, and Meyerson tells about having to take a job in order to pay the bills (until she strikes it rich with her writing, of course). She discovers that having co-workers and meetings opens up her world and her writing. As she describes it: “I write for pay – a hired gun – then go home and hang up my holster and write for love.” But she thinks “Ginny” would understand.
