Rethinking Success
I didn’t feel great about the conclusion I came to last week on what constitutes success in writing. It’s not that I disagree with myself; I just found my conclusion rather pat. Something was missing.
Enter Brenda Ueland. Just when I think I've read all the writing craft books, one that's new to me falls into my lap. Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit was first published in 1938 yet her voice is just as lively as if this were written much more recently than nearly 90 years ago.
In her book, Ueland focuses attention where it ought to be focused: on our drive as imaginative human beings to create and the magic of allowing ourselves that fertile, idle time which feeds our imagination so we can play on the page. We (okay, maybe I) have become so entrenched in producing and being productive, that we forget that our best, truest work may come slowly.
Ueland deeply believes that every one of us is capable of brilliant work. Are we using of our imaginative and creative powers to their fullest? That, to me, is a much better measure of success.
“I have established the reasons you should write from now on until you die, with real love and imagination and intelligence, at your writing or whatever work it is that you care about. If you do that, out of the mountains that you write some mole hills will be published. Or you may make a fortune and win the Nobel Prize. But if nothing is ever published at all and you never make a cent, just the same it will be good that you have worked.” —Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write
