More Bodil

I went back to the writing bits in The Price of Water - the main protagonist, a Bodil clone, argues with her French friend Madame C about writing and happiness:

Madame C says: "Please taisez-vous [shut up, but more politely] and write. Write your happiness, shut up and write."
They then have a huge argument where the Bodil character says that it is impossible to write happiness:
"Writing your happiness turns into platitudes. Happiness writes white."
"Write it," she says. Curt and hard as a diamond.
[...]
"Simile, Madame C., simile is the death of everything, a rose fresh as the dew is a rose fresh as the dew. Everything written is fabricated, wrecked. Only what is, is."

That last sentence is Zen-like and therefore irrefutable-seeming.

Madame C was right: she did write her happiness into the book.