The difficult years

“At a certain age the men writers change into Old Mother Hubbard.  The women writers become Joan of Arc without the fighting.  They become leaders.  It doesn’t matter who they lead.  If they do not have followers they invent them.  It is useless for those selected as followers to protest.  They are accused of disloyalty.  Oh, hell.  There are too many things that happen to them.  That is one thing.  The others try to save their souls with what they write.  That is an easy way out.  Others are ruined by the first money, the first praise, the first attack, the first time they find they cannot write, or the first time they cannot do anything else, or they get frightened and join organizations that do their thinking for them.  Or they do nor know what they want.” – Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa