It takes Effort

I'm reading a novel by Francine Prose called Blue Angel about a fiction-writing teacher named Swenson. He's been working at a small fictitious liberal arts school in Vermont* for a long time; he's closing in on fifty, his wife works as a health care professional at the campus infirmary. They have a daughter away at college (who sounds kinda spoiled). Some lampoony moments of students' bad writing and the silliness of the academic scene. If it sounds interesting, read it (it was a National Book Award finalist), but part of the reason it's mentioned here and now is because it got me to look up a line of dialog from the movie Animal House. Remember Donald Sutherland's Professor Jennings character?

Jennings:
Teaching is just a way to pay the bills until I finish my novel.

Boon:
Novel. Wow. How long you been workin' on it?

Jennings:
Four and a half years.

Pinto:
It must be very good.

Jennings:
It's a piece of shit. Would anyone like to smoke some pot?

[*]Speaking of Vermont: a writer friend is on her way to the Green Mountain State ... enrolled in one of the best MFA programs in the land. Never mind that she's already published two books. But that's not news as much as this is: she just got a note from her editor at Bantam. This morning. It brought me to tears of joy.

"You’re quite the rising star here at Bantam Dell, and if the response from the people here is a thousand times more enthusiastic than that of the reviews, your reviews will still be overwhelmingly glowing and effusively acclaiming."

That, good people, is awesome. And it's a pretty strong indicator that talent helps, but hard work is where things get done. My friend works her ass off.