Ueland - If you want to write: a book about art, independence and spirit

BY ANDREI CODRESCU

THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF INSTRUCTION MANUALS: the kind that are written by well-meaning techies who mean to make you understand how to connect all the parts to the whole; and the other kind, written by angels to instruct you in the achievement of impossible things. Both kinds of manuals subdivide into other types. The first, which does not concern us here, subdivides into those written clearly and those written to frustrate; those written clearly are so much rarer than the obstruse kind that they are sometimes elevated to the rank of inspirational literature. I know, I own The Joy of Cooking.

Brenda Uelands If You Want to Write is of the type written by angels. Simply by living to a very old age with vividness, courage, and no loss of either wits or chutzpah, Brenda Ueland is no mere mortal. Insisting, as she did in this book, that it is within everyones purview to awaken the genius within, she rises above even that. From mere mortal she advances to the rank of teacher. And when that insistence on the genius within everyone is unveiled in sparkling, clear, simple, and fresh language, Ms. Ueland gets wings.

For a writer just beginning her arduous journey of attempting to answer some inarticulate call to express herself, this book is indispensable. The first thing she learns from it is that the thing that she wishes to express is there expressing itself already, and that her first job is to get out of the way. The thing that wishes to express itself is neither more nor less than the world. The writer is merely the channel, the instrument, and the cheerleader of that which wishes to express itself. Paradoxicallyand Ms. Ueland is a master of this paradoxthe writers entire self must participate in helping the world to express itself by giving it her undivided attention. Reserving such exhaustive attention for ones writing is no easy task. How a person can and will concentrate on wresting attention to her writing occupies much of Brenda Uelands instruction manual.

The other thing that Ms. Ueland transmits firmly and with firm simplicity is her belief that all truly great writers trusted their unconscious and were rewarded for this with work that bore their unique stamp. She enlists to her purposes William Blake, whose Imagination Is the Divine Body in Every Man is engraved at the head of her demonstration. She does not shy away from Blakes more unsettling pronouncements on the ferocity of genius, but she gives them the worldly inevitability of experience. Live and you suffer is what we all do, but if you want to write, youll get over that. Youll haveto get over that. Wearing her teacher hat, Ms. Ueland quotes at length from ordinary human beings who attended her workshops and were transformed from harried drudges into writers. She gives no examples of drudges who became outright angels, but one infers the possibility from the process.

Im no spring chicken myself, writerly speaking, but I do need my inspiration refreshed regularly, and to this purpose I turn to 1) inspiring friends, and 2) inspiring books. If You Want to Write is among them. Even though I am familiar with the content of everything in this book, having both known it before Id read it, and having read it several times, I am nonetheless renewed by it. The reason is that Brenda Ueland is one of those beings Allen Ginsberg called Courage Teachers. In my estimation, there is no higher teacher. Brenda Ueland is a believer, and her faith is contagious. The thing that she believes in is also the thing that Blake, Emerson, Whitman, Ginsberg, and Berrigan believed in, namely in the power that comes from paying complete attention to ones circumstances. The joy that infuses attention pays off beyond ones wildest dreams. Its simple, but still secret, because it takes Courage.