Winter Publishing

To the Female Writer

Home »  Nonfiction »  To the Female Writer

To the Female Writer

You aren’t really a writer. Let’s be honest here, this is just a hobby. If you think you can make a living out of this, then maybe you really should go to a mental institution with the rest of the silly, husbandless women. It’s best just to admit now that you’re fooling everyone, and that as soon as a man steps into your life, you’ll need to give it up. After all, what will your husband think of you spending all this time alone, agonizing over whether or not you should put a comma there? Why, you should be spending time with your husband’s children, raising them, and ensuring dinner is ready and on the table by the time your man comes home from work. You don’t have time to keep up this habit of yours. You’d best just let it go.

Women, after all, are incredibly good at rearing children, not writing books. Why else would they need to write under pennames? It’s simple, sweetie, and don’t bother telling people otherwise. Keep your “passions” to yourself. Have you found a boyfriend yet? Do you have an ideal mate pictured? What’s he look like? I bet you’ll want someone tall, someone funny. He’ll have good genes, pass those onto his kids. Will he be blond or dark haired? If you want ginger children, you should marry a redhead. But no pressure.

Please, stop insisting you’re ‘focusing on your writing.’ It’s getting tedious.

Once you get married, your husband may humor your little writerly nonsense for a few months. He may even think it’s cute. But once you have missionary-style sex and become pregnant with his son, he’ll want you to really become a wife. You should raise his three boys and have dinner ready when the man of the house returns from work. Have a beer ready for him, too, so he can relax while you continue to clean the kitchen, prepare the kids for bed, tuck them all in, do laundry, match socks, and try to act like you enjoy sleeping with your husband so he feels masculine enough. He deserves the best.

Watch idly as the rest of your life passes by this way. Consider divorce when you mention wanting to spend some time writing again and your husband laughs with an arch of a brow. Stare at the ceiling while he snores beside you, wondering what became of your life. When did you settle? When did you decide this life was better than your dreams? Ponder if you’re happy and come to the unsettling conclusion that you’re not. Sit up in bed and look at your naked body. Is it even yours? Did you leave it for a while and return to find it shackled to domesticity?

There’s no changing it now, though. You’re happily married. That’s what you’ll tell everyone at social gatherings. You banished those silly thoughts of writing and pursuing your dreams from your head as a child. You—yes, it was you, do not point to society—chose to grow up. You chose to be a woman.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *