I like books where writers talk insightfully about writing, and I also like books about young people finding their way—Sylvia Plath’s journals have both. She worries about the same things writers today do: getting published, getting rejected, making money as a writer, never recapturing her earlier success, and whether teaching is killing her creative drive, though she also worries a lot about dating and relationships (including whether 1950s gender roles will smother her creativity). The only problem is that finding these insights requires sifting through 500+ pages of journals and a lengthy Appendix. I recommend judicial skimming.
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Where I Got It
Found in my office in grad school, left by previous inhabitant.
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List of Quotes (for the skimmers)