The 7 sins of creativity and writing – Pride

Today is the final one of the 7 sins of creativity and writing. If you haven’t seen the rest, start with the first 6, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth,  wrath and envy.

Wrapping it up is pride. While taking pride in your work is important, too much pride is dangerous – so dangerous that pride is actually considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise.

But what makes pride so dangerous? Pride sneaks up on you, it is subtle and very good at hiding just under the surface. You don’t even realize that you have been overwhelmingly boastful until it’s too late and you have alienated someone with your attitude. Unfortunately, we all boast in our writing, even the top bloggers are guilty.

Ari Herzog did it when he talked about getting fans to facebook like he did, Copyblogger did it when he wrote about how he made tons of money using Amazon affiliates, Chris Brogan did it when talking about new book being a best seller. While all of those posts were designed to teach something (facebook fan pages, how to use amazon better, and how to get a book promoted) the undertone of pride was almost too much to bear.

But, we give them a break because they know what they are talking about, have a blog with a lot of readers and are considered experts in their fields. We allow them to write in this manner, and don’t say a word.

The question of the day: Should they be granted that free pass to be prideful just because they are good at what they do? What about someone like me who may have had too much pride when I wrote about starting my own business?

Lastly, never one to keep an incredible find to myself, I just discovered that the entire Divine Comedy, the book that started my curiosities of the sins, Dante Alighieri’s incredible work, is available entirely online and for free! I’ve read it twice, but somewhere in all the moves I have made over the last 5 years, it was lost. I am so excited to be able to read it again and I cannot recommend it enough: The Divine Comedy, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Related posts:

1. The 7 sins of creativity and writing
2. The 7 sins of creativity and writing – Greed
3. The 7 sins of creativity and writing – Envy