The Beautiful and the Useful

Here it is from the Pre-Raphaelite, William Morris: If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. 

It’s a really useful guide as one sweeps through the house. Is this beautiful? Useful? Nope? Then out it goes.

The same is true for writing. One of my daughters showed me a short story she had to write for school. I went through it sentence by sentence. Was each sentence serving the larger purpose of the story–character, setting, plot, atmosphere? If not, out it should go unless it was extraordinarily beautiful.

It’s a good rule for creative writing, isn’t it? Everyone should be both beautiful and useful. If it’s not, save the beautiful darling for another post, and coax the useful thought into beauty

Makes me yearn to get back to the rigours of serious writing. Blogging is like a beach holiday compared to serious writing. But perhaps I will be able to combine both which will be like living in San Diego, or New Zealand with both beaches and mountains accessible in a single day!