ENGL 4310

After reading O'Conner's essay addressing her own creative process, I found myself interested in what Katherine Porter says of her own. In a letter to Glenway Wescott, p.102, she says:

I spend my life thinking about technique, method, style--the only time I do not
think of them at all is when I am writing! This is a kind of madness. . .

She sounds a little like O'Conner who, in her essay, initially claims she can't really identify her process, she just writes.
Another letter I found interesting was one to Josephine Herbst, p.109, who wrote the story Man of Steel which contains a character, Miranda, who I guess is Katherine Porter (I'd love to get my hands on that story). This letter is her reaction upon reading her friends depiction of her. She doesn't say that she is opposed, but I get the impression that Katherine isn't really thrilled about it. My impression comes from Porter's attitude and formula that she describes in her own writing:

. . .myself, I never used anybody I ever knew or any story about any one,
complete. My device is to begin more or less with an episode form life,or
with a certain character; but immediately the episode changes and the
original character disappears. I cannot help it. I find it utterly
impossible to make a report, as such. I like taking a kind of person, and
inventing for him or her a set of experiences which might well have happened to
that person. But they never did happen, except in the story. . . . I must
either write friction, or report the facts. The combination for me is
deadly.

Porter makes another statement I like in a letter commenting on a review of her work, in a letter to Barbara Wescott, p. 133. Speaking of artist in general and using an idea she has studied in a Thiberge textbook she says:

[Thiberge] insists on "spontaneite rigoreusement controle" and isn't that
a wonderful statement of what must happen in any work of art? Great
dancers, bullfighters, automobile racers, painters, tight rope walkers,
writers--all have it, or they couldn't be great. The potential ability to
split a hair at one stroke. It always looks so easy and simple. So,
well regulated chaos is just what I mean . . .

It is interesting to see who she considers artists.
I have not read all her letters, and have skipped around. I'd love to hear about anything you've read about Porter's perspectives on the writing process.
My favorite letter, as of yet, I won't speak about here, but I'd love to hear any one's reaction to is to Edward Schwartz, p.547. It addresses women's perspectives and feminism verses Freud's thoughts. I didn't realize she was so anti-Semitic, but again, loved what she says about women. I shared it with my husband and will be sharing forever with people about women.