Monday, June 27, 2016

If You Want to Write~Brenda Ueland | Review

Title: If You Want to Write
Author: Brenda Ueland
Genre: Non-fiction, Writing, Motivation
Length: 179 Pages
Release: 1983
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Review
I found this book in a thrift store, and being a writer, decided to pick it up and see if it could share some inspiration or insight. Toward the beginning I was really liking it. There's a lot of advice about taking time to ponder and think about your writing, instead of forcing it. There are also many personal stories that help the advice relate more, since it's not just something the author is spouting at you but what she actually feels.

Toward the halfway point, however, I started to lose some of that interest. I did learn some things from this, but I got tired of hearing "which I will show you later" used every other paragraph, if not more often. I just wanted her to get to the point of what she was saying without wasting time telling me about what she was going to tell me. And some of that stuff never really came back up later, which was also frustrating.

The writing style in this was also very different. Not a form that I particularly connected to. This, from my understanding, was literally adapted from her notes though. Without any polish or much editing. These were her thoughts tossed into a book. From that perspective it's actually quite impressive it was as helpful and as interesting as it was, since I'm sure any notes of mine would have been very scattered.

I did gain some insight from this regarding writing what you love and taking your time that I found valuable. It was an interesting read. Don't pick this up if you're expecting a book on the craft of writing, however, that is not the intent of this book.

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