I occasionally feel contempt for that attitude [degree of sexual desire towards me] when I perceive it, but maybe that's not fair. By our culture we've been taught who is most valued and who is not.

Ambition is something you turn into a plan to create an online personality, a brand, a network.

Sadly, too much has changed about publishing ... not only does attractiveness matter to agents and editors, but there's no room anymore for a reclusive writer.

Girls are not just put on earth for men's amusement while they do the important things.

Culture and society determined sexual desirability as what makes us important so long that it's part of our sensibility from birth.Little girls know. From around 2 or 3, the pretty ones already know how and why they get attention. And how quickly they learn to play it. Use it. And how quickly the rest of us figure out we don't have it.

That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.

I always expected my work to be what was noticed, appreciated or what would eventually succeed, not my sexuality.