If You Want to Write a Book About Art Independence and Spirit
Ed: A slightly different version of this review of one of my favorite books on writing appeared earlier this twelvemonth on Globe's Strongest Librarian.
If Y'all Want to Write: A Book Nigh Art, Independence and Spirit was originally published in 1938, and revised in a second edition in 1983. And even though this book is over 70 years erstwhile, I want to say up front end that I retrieve information technology'south the all-time short book on writing that I've e'er read. In fact, I defy yous to read this book—barely 160 pages—and non come away a meliorate writer. And a ameliorate person.
I encountered this volume in a writing workshop, where we were learning to practice freewriting. Brenda Ueland'south book kicked my whole arroyo to freewriting into some other gear.
If you love the way that writing isn't actually about writing at all, only about finding the truth in your life, then you will love this volume. Brenda Ueland wants to teach every person she tin can to "gratuitous your thoughts and the genius that is in y'all." She wants to show you how useful it is for writers to be idle, to allow your imagination stretch its wings.
When you read the book, you don't feel like y'all're listening to Brenda talk to her students at the YMCA in Minneapolis 50 years ago, or in Greenwich village, where she was role of the Bohemian writers. No, she seems to be in the room, whispering in your ear. Sometimes her phonation comes right out of your own heart. She is telling you things you already know, simply which you lot had cached nether the need to make a living, or not appear to exist a fool, or because you idea y'all were stupid or untalented. Simply Brenda Ueland knows better.
Big, Slow Ideas
She is a fan of big, irksome ideas. The kind that accept time to develop, the ideas that anyone can have, withal few ever put down on newspaper. She knows, absolutely, that you have an accurate story to tell that no i else in the globe could hope to get right, only yous. She wants you to tell THAT story, in your own words.
Ueland knows most creativity, about how to quiet the monkey mind of doubt and atheism, and how to open the door to joy and creative energy. You can become an thought of the book from some of the affiliate titles:
- "Everybody is Talented, Original and Has Something Important to Say"
- "Be Careless, Reckless! Be a Lion, Exist a Pirate, When You Write"
- "Why Women Who Practise As well Much Housework Should Neglect It for Their Writing"
Yous might get the idea that If You Want to Write is non-end cheerfulness, but information technology isn't. The writer knows the difficulty of staring at a blank screen, the terror that writers sometimes experience.
"All people have in them this ability to write greatly and well, when they express freely and carelessly what is truthful to THEM."
Ueland teaches you how to practice this in her book by showing you that'south it'southward possible, as a author, to simply go out of your own way, to stop "trying" to write and just let what y'all accept to say come out, every bit messy as information technology wants to be.
The author shows this with lots of examples from the ordinary people who came to her classes. Carl Sandberg called this book "the best book ever written about how to write."
In a recent introduction Andrei Codrescu said the author "is ane of those beings Allen Ginsberg called 'Courage Teachers' . . . her faith is contagious."
Contagious is exactly the right discussion for the result this book has on me. I cannot read it without actually feeling the electric current of energy that comes with inspiration of some kind rise up, enervating to be heard. Whether you call back you're a writer, or yous think you aren't, you should read it—you'll be glad you did.
Photo of Brenda Ueland c. 1930 licensed nether a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, original work copyright past Minnesota Historical Social club, http://world wide web.flickr.com/photos/minnesotahistoricalsociety/
Source: https://www.thebookdesigner.com/book-review-if-you-want-to-write-by-brenda-ueland/
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