Literally the only three things you need to know about Jane Austen
1. Her first major novel (Northanger Abbey) was written solely because she was so salty about how dramatic and cliche and formula Gothic novels were. You know what I mean. Every castle is foreboding. Every villain is awful but can’t bring himself to kill the heroine because she’s Too Pure. Every middle-aged female companion wants to do the heroine in. The heroine is Pure and Perfect and Is Good At Everything Young Women Should Be and recites quotes and/or the Bible whenever she’s in danger and that makes everything better. All butlers are evil. Jane Austen wrote a book specifically to go “THIS is how NORMAL people react to things!!!”
2. “She never changed her opinion about books or men”
3. “As a girl she wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances” and you know what that means. Jane Austen started off writing smut fanfiction. If that’s not writing reassurement that you can be great no matter what you choose to write, I don’t know what is.
(Both quotes from the Penguin Classics version of Northanger Abbey)
Honestly I think all artists are cool and eccentric but writers are the epitome of chaos and creation
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and a fuckton of other British writers formed a notoriously bad cricket team. Stephen King formed a rock band composed completely of writers called the Rock Bottom Remainders. Hans Christian Anderson got ONE bad review and was found lying facedown in the grass, SOBBING. In Charles Dicken’s yard, where he had UTTERLY overstayed his welcome. Oscar Wilde declared that he loved sucking dick and that cock sucking inspired him. Jane Austen wrote an entire book as a fuck you to gothic romance. William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies as a fuck you to those adventure books with British kids. Mary Shelley wrote an entire book as a fuck you and in the process created a whole new fucking genre.
Two things to take away from this information:
Writers travel in packs and you must beware them
All authors are always giving you the middle finger, subtly at best and directly at worst















