Where is the line between ‘good’ for me and ‘good’ for someone else? OR Why is their opinion more important than mine?
I’m sitting on a piece of writing that I like, that my first reader really likes, and that other early readers have given a thumbs up. Yet I have still not submitted it to my desired place of publication. What exactly is my problem? This writer’s dilemma reminds me one of my favourite scenes between Meryl Streep (playing Karen Blixen) and Robert Redford (playing Denys Finch Hatton) in the 1985 film Out of Africa : KAREN: Why is your freedom more important than mine? DENYS: It isn't. And I've never interfered with your freedom. KAREN: No. I'm not allowed to need you. Or rely on you, or expect anything from you. I'm free to leave. But I do need you. DENYS: You don't need me. If I die, will you die? You don't need me. You're confused. You've mixed up need with want. You always have. KAREN: My God. In the world that you would make, there would be no love at all. DENYS: Or the best kind. The kind we wouldn't have to prove. KAREN: You'll be living on