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1. I have some people snarking at my piece about the writing in the Trump era by noting (say) Solzhenitsyn managing to write in Russia...
2. The argument there, presumably, being that if he could do it, I should just shut up about my troubles, SNOWFLAKE. Okay, but...
3. Let's note that it took Solzhenitsyn a decade to write The Gulag Archipelago, his most noted work, and another five years to publish...
4. So perhaps he's in fact a very fine example of how an awful political environment will slow down writing and make it harder to work.
5. The issue isn't if people CAN create in bad times. Of course they can, and do. The question is how much art is slowed or not realized...
6. ... because creatives are using brain cycles to deal with a horrible reality they can't avoid: War, poverty, political repression, etc.
7. I'm guessing that nearly all creatives who had to write during strife would've preferred to have those stolen brain cycles back for art.
8. I'm indeed writing through the Trump era, slower than I'd like, but writing anyway. But I'd like my stolen brain cycles back, too.
9, Thus the irony of trying to use Solzhenitsyn as a cudgel here. I wonder what and how much more we could have had, had he lacked duress.
10. So, yeah. Silly argument. Just another variation of "shut up and write, you monkey." Well, I'll write. But I won't shut up.
Done.
Done.
