#A Brutally Honest Accounting of Writing Money and Motherhood

[schasem]

Our Navy dad grew up poor in Sarasota, Florida, and he reminded me and my siblings constantly of our many advantages. One afternoon, while I was sitting on the bait cooler reading Bram Stoker, he looked up from gutting a red snapper and told me, “Karen, the only reason you can imagine anything at all is because you have food in your belly.” I try not to forget this. If you’re afraid that you can’t pay rent, or buy groceries for your family, there is no surplus energy to burn inside a dream.

Karen Russell, “A Brutally Honest Accounting of Writing, Money, and Motherhood”

[longform]

A secret hope of mine, which I now find hilarious: I imagined that once I had a child, I would become a faster writer. Faster, and also better. It’s hard for me to reconstruct the optimistic logic that led me to this hypothesis. I think I honestly believed that if I did not have the option to write badly, I would simply evolve, like that Lamarckian giraffe, into a more efficient creature.

Karen Russell | Wealthsimple | Mar 2020