Perseverance: A List

1. The writer Alice Adams had a bad relationship with her mother, a failed writer. (The act of writing becomes fraught with family baggage.)

2. Alice decided that if she wrote maybe her mother would like her. (Risky idea. The mother would, more likely, be jealous.)

3. In college a creative writing teacher told her to quit writing and get married. (Authority figure speaks. Hard to counter that voice and not internalize it.)

4. She got married, had a child, and the marriage failed. A single mom, she worked as a secretary. (Time to write? When?)

5. Her psychiatrist told her to quit writing and remarry. (Yikes.)

6. She did not take his advice.

Make a list of forces working against you as a writer. Now set the list aside and get back to the writing.