Letters from a Young Writer: The Aftermath
I’m still not sure what I expected to hear when she wrote back. Whatever it was I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it:
to anser the last part im not happy with what i make anyway because when ever i finish i think i need to add more and make it better and then even when i do finish it isint my vision of perfect and somewhere along the rode after adding it to be how i want it to be i finally just say fuck it this is how it will be so to answer that question of if thats what i really want to tell u the truth its not that big of a change
I’m not sure why I decided to give her the benefit of one more doubt. Maybe I’m stubborn that way; maybe I have a hard time admitting that sometimes people are lost beyond help. Sometimes people know their shortcomings but can’t summon up the drive to begin correcting them, but I believe in bootstraps, and sometimes you have to try, one more time.
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Find your mistakes in this letter and correct them.
You don’t have to make it perfect; you only have to make it right.
-Adrian
I like to believe that I really would have helped her, if she could do this little thing; I like to believe that making the difference would be worth it. Writing is a hobby to me, and missing a contributor’s copy of the YaoiCon anthology is no big loss. This website didn’t exist then, only my old one, and I already abandoned for months at a time.
She didn’t make it better, though. She gave me this:
To answer the last part, im not happy with what i make because whenever i finish i think i need to add more and make it better, then finish. When i do finish it isint my vision of perfect and somewhere along the rode after making revisions after revisions I finally just say ” eh fuck it this is how it will turn out.” So to answer the question of “is this what you truely want?” the truth is its not that big of a change.
Is this what you mean?
This time I didn’t write back. I’m not that patient. I’m not that good.
I think about her sometimes in hindsight, usually when she sends me some inane chain-letter or an invitation to IMVu. It’s not very pretty. Subliteracy isn’t much of an option anymore, not in the modern world. Even high-school graduates barely scratch middle-class; we’ve all but written dropouts out of the American dream. At her level, it isn’t about art, but competence. As I said, You don’t have to make it perfect; you only have to make it right. She couldn’t even do that.
She still has five years, maybe four by now. When (if) she graduates high school, the system will cut her loose. In that time someone might make her see how much she’s missing; someone might make her care; someone might make the most important difference of her life. That someone just won’t be me.
My door stayed open for months.
I will shed no tears.