what do you call a woman who trusts her own mind no matter what the world says about it?

Gertrude’s manuscripts were rejected over and over until she made her own press to print them, but the reviews were rabid, and sales never amounted to much. Few saw her work the way she did. But still. She didn’t let anyone tell her who she was. She stood tall and kept writing her story herself. Here, you may even use these words, she said, I’ll spoon feed them to you.

She writes like Cézanne paints, she said of herself, telling them how to hold her.

Again and again they said she was unreadable, a literary idiot, and she could have put her tail between her legs and thrown away her pen, sure they must have known whether she was something of quality. But she didn’t. She knew that she knew something they did not, and she trusted that more than she ever trusted them.

Sometimes the most Decider thing you can do is keep your hand to the page and know that decades later they will read you differently than they do now. They will see you differently than they do now. Write it for them, a love letter to the future. Because they, out then, are waiting for your words.

Send them, like starlight.