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Show RFVER American woman was bearing the brunt of the world's evil. I accepted Rosie as my equal and firmly believed that no human being should dominate, control, or oppress any other human being's individuality, but the dogma of the woman's movement appealed to me about as much as Spanish fascism. As our relationship went south, we were both looking for an explanation of something that was basically unexplainable. The pleasure I took in my writing began to disappear in the cold months. The book came to feel like a boulder and I felt like Sisyphus: I'd roll the boulder up the mountain, it would tumble back down, and I'd roll it back up the mountain again. As I went into the third draft I could see that there were a few glaring faults in my masterpiece. I worked hard, but there were basic problems-such as my lack of writing experience-that made the book not work. The characters had no depth, the plot was simple-minded, and the narrative voice was a disaster. The prose was like something you'd hear on television: in eighty thousand words there weren't three good sentences. The realization of how really bad the book was hit me all at once. After getting a rejection for an early draft of the book, I got up the next morning and resolved to write like hell. I'd barely started when my antiquated typewriter began to disintegrate. Keys broke and the roller came unsprung. I was frustrated to the point of outrage, and when I went back over the work it was suddenly apparent that it was drivel. It was hard to bear. I realized that my literary apprenticeship had just begun and did not take the knowledge well. I desperately reworked the novel, I suppose I 'd written half a million words before I finally laid it down, but by the end of spring I knew I'd failed. The novel was real garbage. I was exhausted and burnt out. I realized that to write a good -127- |