Happy Independence Day to the Americans reading Creative Writing Corner! It's a good holiday, but as always, it's a good time to start asking yourself some questions about what the day means and what independence as a concept really means. For women in particular, I think, independence can be a daily struggle that takes both imagination and compromise. Virginia Woolf made independence a concept that is now seen as crucial to the writing life: without self-reliance, we cannot be truly creatively bold, she argued, and the women of her time particularly needed this in order to take wing. Independence can be a state of mind, but it can also be very concrete, such as the "room of one's own" and the 500 pounds a year that Woolf set as a standard for independence. We may need significantly more than that amount, but financial independence is just as crucial today as it was then.
Perhaps in your life, financial independence is proving an obstacle toward embracing the writing life, but perhaps there's a need for greater emotional independence as well. Are there people or other emotional ties in your life that are holding you back? This time of year might be a good time to evaluate your life and consider what ties need to be cut and which ones re-negotiated.
Of course, I'm not a believer in absolute and total independence, the kind that denies any attachment to the world, to a community, to a family or country. A more mature outlook on life, I think, is one in which we acknowledge all of our mutual interdependence while not being afraid to strike out on our own and take wing. A country and an individual alike must acknowledge that they are not islands. But find your own way to be creative, and have a wonderful holiday this year!
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