Help
Sign In
RSS Feed
|
Required Reading - Brenda UelandSandra said Aug 16, 6:39 AM: |
||
|
Okay, so finally I am here to talk a bit about Brenda Ueland's book ”If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit' Ruth posted up a quote from. ” I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. the thing to say to such people is: “See how bad a story you can write. Go ahead… I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!” And of course no one can. Try this yourself. It is a relief and you see then how you are not dull at all. It is just as guilty people who are always trying to be so good, should try to be very bad and resolve to stick to it they would find then how natural it comes to them to be good and ould not stain after it, which makes them hypocrites, though in a nice way. Well, when I told the timid people in the class to see how badly they could write it would give them the courage to venture a few little sentences. And since everybody who is human cannot say a sentence without revealing something-something mild or violent or waggish in their souls- or without having something fine in it, I would point this out. Courage would expand and they would gradually write more.” Now, I haven't finished the book, and there is much in it that not only explores much of what we talk about here, but in her own glorious way, she also talks about things I hadn't thought of - at least not recently. The importance of being idle. “- because thoughts come so slowly. For what we write today slipped into our souls some other day when we were alone and doing nothing.” She talks about how we drive ourselves, how we keep doing something, pushing and pressing to get things done, to achieve, rushing about and so forth. ”.. nervous, empty, continually willing action is sterile and the faster you run and accomplish a lot of useles things, the more you are dead.” She encourages an hour or so of vacant 'doodling' a day..”So, if you want to write try this: go into your room alone. Resign yourself tranquilly to do something slow and worthless for at least an hour. Take a pencil or sit before your typewriter and look out of the window..” Brenda also talks about the things we 'do' to 'help' us write - smoke, drink coffee; and how often just at the moment a real idea is about to come forth, that is so often when we might get up to make a coffee, light a cigarette etcetera, and the idea is avoided. I would say this is the time when the writing wants to 'go fearward', but we do something ( eg, stop, because the 20 minutes of the assignment is 'up''; tell ourselves the children need a look in, etc). There is much much more here, and I truly hope everyone will go out and get a copy of this book. It is rare I feel like this about a book 'about writing' - so often I find that reading such books is a way of avoiding writing, or they make us feel like we cannot write, it's too difficult, too much work and so on. But not this book. It is the perfect accompaniment to Diving Deeper. It is not just about writing or creating art, it is about living. And, it is a delightful read. I will probably add to this thread more later, when I've finished the book. |
|||
Permalink
Print
Email
|
|
Re: Required Reading - Brenda UelandSandra said Aug 18, 3:38 AM: |
||
|
I've just written a bit about something Brenda recommends in a comment to Andy's wonderful “Faster than you can think” assignment. It's about keeping a daily 'diary' of entries where you type/write so fast that you don't ponder or try to write 'well'. Have a read of what I said here. |
|||
