she remembers the teachers the other students the things they said the things they told her you 're not being true to yourself you need to write about what you know you need to write about your life and what they really mean she eventually realized was that she needed to write more black more woman more lesbian they need to put her in a box in a category they 're no different from the kids who made fun of her in high school in middle school from the very beginning it was n't easy but then it 's never easy for anybody and all those white boys their scruffy unshaven faces and adolescent ideas and those white men their beards and their novels telling her that she needs to get into her box and she just assumed that they were right because they looked like the authors she loved and she tried to do it but it is n't her and she gave it up and put it behind her and let it die and there was only ever one person in all the world besides her mother who ever believed in her and she pushed that person away oh god she pushed her away and now she 's alone alone .