there is bravery in being soft

a woman is less likely to go "it's stupid that women are expected to be modest" than she is to go "there is nothing immodest about a woman going out without a chaperone" or even "i can go out without a chaperone because i am so modest"

In Jane Austen's novels, we see one very strict conservative family, the Bertrams in Mansfield Park, and one very permissive family in the Bennets in Pride & Prejudice. Not all families are treating their daughters the same. Every era would have this, fathers who spoil their daughters vs. fathers who are very strict with them. There have always been instances of fathers giving their daughters a full male education for example. If you want your historical fiction daughter to really struggle against her father, make her father worse than average. Have the other girls say that her father is the worst one, instead of imagining that every father is equally bad (which is dumb).

The Sierra Foothills, California

When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher told my mom that I must be "spoiled because I couldn't do anything for myself." When my mom mentioned I was having a hard time learning to read, she responded, "oh! I noticed that and I was so surprised because she's so intelligent—"

In 3rd grade I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I couldn't read Dr. Suess.

In 4th grade I successfully read the first page of the Magician's Nephew, but couldn't get any further.

In 5th grade I was doing 4th grade math, and when I wrote on lined paper, I started in the middle of the page. I also had to study every night for my spelling tests, and the one week my mom was too busy to help me study, I got a D.

6th-8th grade I was reading through the Narnia books.

In 7th grade I went to state's for a Patriot's Pen essay contest.

In 8th grade, I had to drop back to 7th grade math, because Algebra I was too hard, and I was experiencing the onset of OCD.

At some point around here I had to listen to Little Women as an audiobook because I couldn't read it. Tried Jane Austen, same result.

All throughout high school I struggled intensely with math and science. I didn't understand them no matter how hard I tried, so instead I memorized everything I could.

I graduated high school in 2020, suma cum laude.

College was similar, a bunch of books I didn't really grasp. Didn't get a lick of Shakespeare (but I wrote my best paper ever about Ophelia and Cordelia), Dante, Proust, Aristotle, or Henry James, but I paid really close attention to lectures and underlined anything that was important and thus wrote good papers. I did understand (and loved) Dostoevsky, Austen, Waugh, Sophocles, Plato, and others.

I graduated suma cum laude again in December.

The Fall of Gil Galad // Song of Eärendil // Lay of Nimrodel 

I often hear the argument that having major characters die is more realistic than having them always come through unscathed. Of course it is. But I personally don’t want my fiction to necessarily be “realistic” – I want my fiction to be entertaining. For me, that means watching engaging characters I care about get into and out of dangerous predicaments, working and thinking together in order to defeat the bad guys. While some authors (and readers) like the tension of wondering who will live and who will die, I prefer the tension of seeing how the heroes are going to think or work their ways out of each difficult or impossible situation they find themselves in. If I want realism and the deaths of people I care about, I can turn on the news.

Dress

c. 1772-1775

silk, linen, cotton (thread)

England