Writing Advice From Ursula K. Le Guin I Wish I Had Known 40 Years Ago

 CC talked about writing a memoir. She is a little creaky in her grammar, maybe, but I am trying to convince her what she needs to do is what Ursula K. LeGuin advocates in Ursula K. Le Guin on How to Become a Writer.

How do you become a writer? Answer: you write.

It’s amazing how much resentment and disgust and evasion this answer can arouse. Even among writers, believe me. It is one of those Horrible Truths one would rather not face.

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...Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside.

OK, how do you go about getting at that truth? You want to tell the truth. You want to be a writer. So what do you do?

You write. 

I quit. Then I started again after I pulled what had been my life down on my head. It would have been better if I had kept trying.

(OTOH, the way the rejections keep coming, I might have been right about not getting published. Note to self and to everyone reading this post: writing and publishing are two different things. That I went back to writing has brought me lucidity and a way to keep on living after too long of a self-destructive streak.)

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