Wasn't it Annie Dillard in The Writing Life who said the world doesn't need your novel? The last thing anybody wants is another crappy piece of literature you just HAD to poop out to demonstrate your awe-inspiring grandeur to the universe.
Writing is hard, boo-hoo, so is laying down cement or bagging groceries. Nobody appreciates me, just like you don't appreciate anybody who isn't you.
Oscar Wilde said, "It is an honor to be ruined by poetry." Anybody who's slaved all day over a hot written word can attest to that. Go cry in your Glenlivet and see if any working stiff cares that you didn't get that TA position, or the grant fell through, or your thesis committee chair doesn't like the way you dress.
This is what we get when we insist all writers be teachers and all teachers be writers - incestuous, petty bickering about who deserves what. The saddest part of all is that academics aren't the Borgias or the Roman Senate infighting over who gets to hold the reins of power. The prize isn't grand or lofty, you don't get to hold the keys of life and death over your underlings and vassals. You get maybe a thousand bucks more a month and another paragraph to pad your curriculum vitae.
Yeah, welcome to Art... the Business!
Money
Dana Gioia
Money is a kind of poetry.– Wallace Stevens
Money, the long green,
cash, stash, rhino, jack
or just plain dough.
Chock it up, fork it over,
shell it out. Watch it
burn holes through pockets.
To be made of it! To have it
to burn! Greenbacks, double eagles,
megabucks and Ginnie Maes.
It greases the palm, feathers a nest,
holds heads above water,
makes both ends meet.
Money breeds money.
Gathering interest, compounding daily.
Always in circulation.
Money. You don't know where it's been,
but you put it where your mouth is.
And it talks.
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