The Good Writer
Saturday, February 28, 2009
"When asked why she wrote, she replied, 'Because I'm good at it.'"
That's Flannery O'Connor as quoted by Joy Williams in her New York Times Book Review review of Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor.
Because I'm good at it. And why not? Why not abandon all the philosophizing for a moment—put the moral avatars in one corner and the world peace makers in another, give the riff raff their pot of coffee (very black) and their prime rib (bloody rare), and make a declaration?
Flannery O'Connor wrote lonely, she wrote dying, she wrote in pain, she wrote through. Flannery O'Connor wrote, and she was good. Didn't need the world to tell her (though it did). She had no time to lose.
