• Writing as fun:  Who can forget the image of Jo March scribbling in her attic, cap on head, pillow at the ready, rats scurrying all around?  Though I know that Louisa May Alcott’s experience of the writing “vortex” was a bit more painful, her character’s no-holds-barred approach to writing reminds me to have some fun with the process.  After all, what other profession includes dreaming, crying, even eavesdropping in its description?
• Writing as salvation:  The story of the Brontës is all I need to remember that I am lucky to have the outlet of writing.  I may not pace around a table at Haworth, but like Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, I try to pour my relief and anxiety into my work.  It helps.
• Writing as rebellion:  She may have written a century ago, but I still consider Colette to be the ultimate literary rebel (and writing about her literary declaration of independence was one of the highlights of The Heroine’s Bookshelf).  Sometimes I find myself continuing work just to prove to myself that I can…that I have something to say, after all.  And I usually do.
• Writing as legacy:  I recently treated myself both to Francine Prose’s excellent new Anne Frank book and the Revised Critical Edition of Anne’s timeless diary.  I didn’t get a chance to include Anne in my book, but I am touched by her awareness that her legacy in the world was a written one.  I won’t ever presume to be an Anne, but thoughts of a literary legacy of some kind are a nice reminder when the going gets tough (and a push to revise the hell out of my terrible first drafts so that nobody reads them when I’m gone!).
• Writing as reading:  As an unabashed bookworm, I can say that there’s nothing so tantalizing as the thought of showing my work to others, no matter how painful that process might be.  The wit, spunk, and sass of my favorite heroines reminds me that I can’t have readers unless I write.  Talk about motivation!

When you think about it, the idea of heroism is a bit hard to wrap your mind around.  The definition I prefer goes something like this:

expansive: of behavior that is impressive and ambitious in scale or scope; “an expansive lifestyle”; “in the grand manner”; “collecting on a grand scale”; “heroic undertakings”

It’s hard to live your life in a grand manner, especially in times that aren’t exactly expansive.  So often, I’ve seen ambition rewarded with failure, high hopes with blah realities.  As someone who always seemed a bit off-kilter and out of place in her childhood home, I spent a lot of time looking outside myself for role models, people to emulate or call upon when I felt down.  I found many of my heroines in between the pages of the books I love; I found even more in history and some in my own personal life.

In my travels around the blogosphere I recently ran across this sentence by debut author Sonia Gensler, who writes in this blog post:

To the left of the bulletin board is my framed poster of the Brontë sisters. When I’m feeling whiny and pathetic, I think of the Brontës and how isolated they were, how many loved ones they lost, and what a crazy mess their brother was. So many sorrows and distractions threatened their creativity, and yet they managed to be quite prolific. One glance at that poster and I straighten my spine and get back to work.

I’m like Sonia:  after spending a year plus thinking about heroines, I love to invoke the idea of a heroine when, say, I am crampy and cranky and want to crawl into a cave for a year and cut off all contact with humanity.  I invoke the idea before a business meeting that scares the bejeezus out of me.   And I cut myself a bit more slack because I can see the ways in which my miniscule, pitiful daily struggles really speak to something heroic.  I am, after all, the girl who went to Germany knowing two words in the language and survived for a long exchange year at the tender age of fifteen.  I’m the girl who somehow got herself through college, who played roller derby and sung in an indie rock band and has started two successful businesses thus far.  And I’m the girl who, despite my wildest fears and reservations, keeps returning to the page even when nothing comes out right.

I bet you’re a heroine, too.  So…what personal heroism do you have to celebrate these days?  And who are the heroines you call on when you feel like quitting?

What is it about heroines?  Why do they exert such a seductive pull, calling me away from the dishes and the to-do list?

Here are some ideas:

• They’re not us: Heroines exist in a world outside of ourselves, something to escape into and crawl inside for a while.
• They are us: Heroines possess that which we ourselves have:  personalities, strong wills, the ability to adjust to circumstance.
• Possibilities and warnings: Heroines present another road, one in which we could do the mundane or the spectacular, transcending ourselves or destroying ourselves in the process.

How about you?  Why are heroines important to you?