There comes a time when the aspirant, proudly conscious of a certain
technical skill in composition and construction, and disheartened by
repeated failures, exclaims with petulance: "What _shall_ I write
about?" She dolefully imagines that the list of feasible subjects is
exhausted; her wearied brain refuses any longer to carry on its sterile
activities, and despair settles down upon her. This is because her eyes
have not been opened to the limitless possibilities for the making of good
"copy" which exist on every side. Most probably she has been looking in
quite the wrong direction.

When Rob Angus, in _When a Man's Single_, remarks to Rorrison, "And
yet I had thirty articles rejected before the 'Minotaur' accepted that
one," Rorrison's reply is, "Yes, and you will have another thirty rejected
if they are of the same kind. You beginners seem able to write nothing but
your views on politics, and your reflections on art, and your theories on
life, which you sometimes even think original. Editors won't have that,
because their readers don't want it. Every paper has its regular staff of
leader-writers, _and what is wanted from the outsider is freshness_.
An editor tosses aside your column and a half about evolution, but is glad
to have a paragraph saying that you saw Herbert Spencer the day before
yesterday gazing solemnly for ten minutes in a milliner's window. Fleet
Street at this moment is simply running with men who want to air their
views about things in general."

With slight modification the satire applies admirably to women. Perhaps
women are not so anxious as men to air their views about things in general
(though they are tolerably anxious), but they are certainly too prone to
write down vaguely their vague _fancies_ about things in general.
Fleet Street at this moment (to use Rorrison's expressive phrase) is
simply running with women who are writing fanciful essays and not selling