On Writing

I recently finished If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. The book was recommended to me by my Mother, who isn't a writer herself but she is a living card catalogue due to her infatuation with the library. I am grateful for this.

Back to the book. Ueland is very opinionated, but who isn't? Ueland caught my attention because she doesn't try to hide herself. She shouts her thoughts onto the paper. I can imagine a reader being totally turned off by her though, but it's like she is reading my mind when she writes. Let me take a minute to clarify that every sentence she has written has been previously conceived in my head.

So, not all the words in this entry will be mine. I am obligated to share what I believe to be wise observations about society and writing. I relate much to what she says because it holds true to the person I am and the experiences I have had.

"Then we go to school and then comes on the great Army of school teachers with their critical pencils, and parents and older brothers (the greatest sneerers of all) and cantankerous friends, and finally that Great Murderer of the Imagination - a world of unceasing, unkind, dinky, prissy Criticalness." - Ueland (XI)

Having English professors examine every word and every syllable of mine in papers for a few years has really paved the way for this quote to sweep in on me and beat me around with its honesty. Obviously, I realize these professors are doing their job and not all criticism is bad criticism. In my experiences though I believe much of the criticism that is unloaded on students, especially in secondary education, leads to the suffocation of the original voice in us all. We ultimately mill into line and try as best as we can to produce formulaic, bland ideas that work toward the so-called betterment of society.

This book isn't just about writing, it's about expressing whatever is inside of you. Ueland makes her point again and again that just because you might not make money from it and you might not be praised for it, IT needs to be expressed and you should go to great lengths to protect it from the suffocation of this world.