Advice for Creativity & Blog Writing

This is an extended quote from Brenda Ueland’s book, If You Want To Write. It is an excellent source for inspiration and practical advice for creativity. I encourage you to get it. I found my used copy, in good condition, online for $1. Here’s the quote:

Gradually by writing you will learn more and more to be free, to say all you think; and at the same time you will learn never to lie to yourself, never to pretend and attitudinize. But only by writing and by long, patient, serious work will you find your true self.

But remember always that the true self is never a fixed thing. You can never say: “Good. Today I find at last what I am really like: splendid type!” You cannot say that because the true self is always in motion like music, a river of life, changing, moving, failing, suffering, learning, shining. That is why you must freely and recklessly make new mistakes- in writing or in life- and do not fret about them but pass on and write more. Active evil is so much better than passive good, which is just docility, feebleness, timidity. And do not try to be consistent, for what is true to you today may not be true at all tomorrow, because you see a better truth…

Therefore, when you write, speak with complete self-trust and do not timidly qualify and feel the ice of well authenticated literary usage and critical soundness- so afraid when you have finished writing that they will ridicule you full of holes.

Let them. Later if you find what you wrote isn’t true, accept the new truth. Consistency is the horror of the world.

The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings.