If You Want To Write

One of my favorite books on writing is “If you Want to Write” by Brenda Ueland. What I like the most about this little book, written in 1938 by a mostly unknown writer and teacher is its tone – a lack of pretentiousness about the act of writing together with it’s encouragement to write from the heart. Here are some of Brenda Ueland’s words put together by me from different parts of her book. (I’ve read her book many times and so I know unequivocally that she doesn’t mind.)

All people long to write (this is natural and right) – but we become timid, anxious, perfectionists. So many people are afraid of writing a poor story they never write. The thing to say to such people is: “See how bad a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. I will give you ten dollars if you write something thoroughly dull.” All people have in them this power to write greatly and will, when they express freely and carelessly what is in THEM. The writer has a feeling and utters it from his true self, the reader reads it and is immediately infected. If the writer has good ideas but is not good himself, there is no infection, nobody will be really affected by his ideas, enkindled or changed. Now to have things alive and interesting, it must be personal, it must come from the “I”. What I know, what I feel. Art is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple passionate way, you try to show this beauty in things to others. The creative power does not come from ambition. Ambition injures it and makes it a nervous strain and hard work. Writing is not a performance but a generosity. Write to enlarge the soul. Work freely and rollickingly as if you were talking to a friend who loves you.