One of my favorite books, one I keep open on my bedstand, is Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write. A good friend recommended it to me, and then sent me a copy four or five years ago. Loved it from the start, and took it with me when I did a series of lectures and workshops at the University of Nebraska in Kearney. I stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast there, and evidently left the book when I returned home. I figured I'd left it in the bed and breakfast for someone else to discover. Recently, while going through a box of books I had put in storage almost 10 years ago, I found my own pristine, never-read copy of If You Want to Write. Evidently, it was one of those books I had picked up with the intention to read, but hadn't.
Since finding it, it's been a source of inspiration for me, even though I'm already writing full time. Her ideas, like all good ideas, provide me with a constant stream of inspiration, support, and encouragement. Brenda Ueland, herself, found a steady stream of support and inspiration from other great artists and writers. Some of what I share with you includes some of the quotes she shared from artists she admired, and some she knew.
Brenda Ueland's name is one of those that pops up on the margins of other writers work. Brenda was the author of 2 books, many articles, and short stories. She taught writing, and was knighted by the King of Norway. In her lifetime she wrote over six million words (that is without a typewriter or computer). She also set a record for swimming 80-year-olds. She once wrote that she walked at least 8 to 10 miles a day to warm up for writing. She lived to be 93. Carl Sandburg called her book, “the best book ever written about how to write.”
Brenda Ueland had two rules about writing. The first rule is to always tell the truth. Her second rule is to never do anything you do not want to do. Brenda believed, and taught according to the following beliefs: everyone is talented, everyone is original, and everyone has something important to say. These were the rules for the road as both a writer and a teacher.
Here are some of the words she used to inspire others and word she was inspired by.
“Writing or painting is putting thoughts on paper. Music is singing or playing ideas. That is all there is to it.”
“ Jones at Johns Hopkins, who knows more about heredity and genes and chromosomes than any person in the world, says that no individual is exactly like any other individual, that no two identical persons have ever existed.” (This was before cloning.) “Consequently, if you speak or write from yourself, you cannot help but be original. But your words or your art must be from your true self.”
“Work with all your intelligence and wealth. Work freely and rollickingly as though they [your words, your art, your students] were friends who love you. Mentally, (at least 3 or 4 times a day) thumb your nose at all those know-it-alls, jeerers, critics and doubters.” Sometimes those critics and tyrants are in your own head; the same rule applies double.
" Creative power should be kept alive in all people for all their lives.”
“William Blake used to say, when his energies were diverted from his drawing or writing, that he was 'being devoured by jackals and hyenas.' God, Blake often called, the Poetic Genius, said of Jesus and his disciples, that they were all artists.
“The more you use your joyful creative power, the more you have.”
“Reason, which is really just caution, continually nips and punctures shrivels the imagination , the ardor, and the freedom and the passionate enthusiasm welling up in us [ Blake called this the only enemy of God]”
“No writing is a waste of time... with every sentence you write, you have learned something. He has done good. You stretch your understanding."
“Van Gogh, a great genius, was simply loving what he saw and then wanting to share it with others, not for the purpose of showing off, but out of generosity.”
"When discouraged, remember what Van Gogh said., 'If you hear a voice within you saying, You are no painter, then paint by all means lad, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working."
Written about a time when she had been suffering an illness, Brenda Ueland said., “I need not hurry myself; there is no good in that-- but I must work on in full calmness and serenity, as regularly and concentratedly as possible, as briefly and concisely as possible.”
Definition of writing: An impulse to share with other people of feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give them, if they cared to hear it. If they did not-- fine. They did not need to listen. That was all right too. And I would never fall into the two extremes (both lies) of saying: I have nothing to say and I am of no importance and have no gift; or the public does not want the good stuff.”
Socrates and other Greek philosophers decided that a person's life should be devoted to the “tenance of the Soul (Soul included intelligence, imagination, spirit, understanding, personality)” For the Soul lived eternally in all probability.”
“Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly.”
“By truth, I do not mean a statement of fact. Truth must come from your true self and not from your theoretical self, from what you really think, love You and believe, not from your hope to make an impression.”
“Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness."
And here is the big news. She understood this long before our generations struggled to find an answer. “And that is why I would say to the worn and hectored mothers in the class who long to write and could not find a minute for it: if you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say: mother is working on her 5-act tragedy in blank verse! You would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights." She wrote a chapter entitled, "Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect if for Their Writing." She would probably now have to add a chapter for all the other things we neglect ourselves and our art for.
They would look at me wistfully and know it is true. But after all the centuries of belief that women should only be encouragers and fosterers of talent in others, and have none of their own (as though you can effectively foster or encourage other people's talent unless you have a great deal of your own!) it is hard to do. I know that. But if women once learn to be something themselves, that the only way to teach this to be a fine and shining example, we will have a generation of remarkable and glorious children.”
I leave you with these thoughts, as perhaps a little inspiration to sit down today at the table, the desk, the potter's wheel, the easel, worktable, or wherever you create, and spend some time in your true self. Be a little more true to yourself today.
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