circa 1923: American author Willa (Sibert) Cather (1873 – 1947) uses a ledge while writing outdoors during a vacation in New Hampshire. (Photo by New York Times Co./Getty Images)

Writing in the New Yorker‘s website section titled Page-Turner, Joan Acocella posted recently about the tendency of women writers, historically, to begin their writing careers later than their male counterparts.  She uses Willa Cather’s case as an example and draws a conclusion that could  as easily be applied to entrepreneurship (bold added below to highlight the conclusion):

…By her thirties, she had acquired a very good job, as the managing editor of McClure’s, an important New York magazine. She got to go to Europe and meet famous writers. But secretly she herself wanted to be a writer. She was sure she could not be. The most honored novelist of that time, the nineteen-tens, was Henry James: refined, complicated, urban. Cather, meanwhile, was still kicking the dust of Red Cloud off her shoes. Finally, at thirty-seven, in what must have been a wrenching act of courage, she took a leave from McClure’s and wrote a novel, “Alexander’s Bridge.” It was in the manner of James, and it was a dud, as she knew from the moment it was published.

A crucial difference, I think, between successful and unsuccessful artists is the ability to survive disappointment. Logically, after the failure of “Alexander’s Bridge,” Cather should have given up. She had always figured she couldn’t make it as a novelist. Here, apparently, was the proof. But for some reason that no one has ever been able to explain, she immediately sat down and wrote a second novel, “O Pioneers!,” which obeyed the fiction-writing-workshop dictum “Write what you know.”…

Read the whole post here. If we were to put this in metaphorical terms typical of both entrepreneurship and realities of the time of place in which Willa Cather was born, when you are thrown from the horse, if possible you must dust yourself off and do your best to get back on the horse.