If You Want To Write
The book “If you want to write” by Brenda Ueland was recommended to me by a good friend. And I’m so grateful for that, thank you Jannilla ! I’m at lost of words on this book. It’s so tightly written, less than hundred pages yet full of interesting discussion on various topics. I really like how Brenda fuels the energy into me as a reader and a writer. Just let it out, write, scribble, type. Then it’s time to think about grammar, punctuation and wording. Then it’s time to lookup quotes to use, semantics of words and so on.
It’s about how well the story is told. A child story is a good example that the book describe. A child will listen to a story as long as the story is well told. The same is true for any writing. A reader will not pay attention unless the story is well told. If the meaning, subtext, moral or anything that is a statement of how something ought to be done is spelled out in great detail, then the writer is maybe not thinking about and respecting the readers attention. The author that tells exactly what the reader should think will probably not be such a great author.
The book will not teach you the mechanics or tools that are required. And that’s a point by the author - writing is not about the tools you use. How I’ve procrastinated on that! So much time can be spent on thinking about various moleskins, papers, typewriters, fonts and typesetting, spell checkers.
If you want to read it, it’s only less than hundred pages and could probably be read under an hour. Or, as I did, with extensive pauses between the very thoughtful, real life based examples on how to write and also live a full life. Try it, it has already helped me.
Gunnar Ahlberg
http://gunnarahlberg.com
email@gunnarahlberg.com
