It's nearly four weeks into January, and lamentably my writing
aspirations for the year are not well on their way to being realized. I
thought this would be a month bristling with productivity; I have far
less to do than in December, so it should follow that I would write at
least as many reviews and, while I was at it, pull an Alex and Emma
and tap out an entire novel. Ha! But last week, my friend's mom lent me
a book that has come highly recommended by a number of literary-minded
friends and professors. "You have to read Bird By Bird," they all
told me, and now I finally have, and at just the right time to
kick-start my year of purposeful writing - not bird-watching, as my
relatives surmised when they saw me reading the book earlier this week,
though I'm sure I could combine the two activities...
What
Anne Lamott offers in this book beloved by so many writers both
struggling and established (scratch that - if Lamott shows us anything,
it's that we're all struggling) is practical, honest advice
housed in rich, humorous prose. You don't have to aspire to writing fame
and fortune to appreciate this book, and in fact it might be better if
you don't, lest her blunt laying out of the facts leave you discouraged
and bitter. If you really are in love with the craft, though, you won't
let that get you down, and if all you want to do is finish that darned
term paper, she may have just the nuggets of wisdom you need to get you
through one more caffeine-drenched all-nighter.
If the basic
idea of this book could be boiled down to two words, they would be
"start small." I certainly understand all too well the crippling fear
that comes with staring down a blank sheet of paper, especially when I
know I'll have to fill up ten of them in some coherent fashion in order
to pass one class or another. It's easy to be so immobilized by the
enormity of a project that you can't even start. Especially when you're
past the point of graded assignments and you have nothing but your own
motivation to spur you onward. So take baby steps. Write a little bit at
a time, and don't worry if the results are crummy. You can iron that
out later. For starters, just write.
Lamott delves into all
sorts of specifics too, breaking her book down into five parts, the
first four of which are further broken down into very manageable
chapters. The most extensive of the parts is the first, which deals with
actually writing, while the others focus on the writing frame of mind,
getting help from like-minded individuals and publishing. The last part
serves as a sort of epilogue as Lamott shares what she tells her
students on the last day of their writing class.
Interspersed
with the helpful hints are tidbits about Lamott's life, particularly her
development as a writer under the influence of her author father and
the inspiration she has drawn from her son Sam and her best friend
Pammy. In one chapter, she discusses extensively the idea of writing as a
gift for a particular someone; she wrote her first book for her father
while he was dying, and she wrote another book for Pammy while she was
dying, but those books were also able to become gifts to others,
particularly those in a similar situation. She encourages writing what
you know, if only for the benefit of a parent or a grandchild. That in
and of itself is enough to merit the writing. But such personal stories
can have wide applicability, so you might just be able to shine a
spotlight on those closest to you for all the world to see.
Lamott strikes me as a deeply spiritual yet light-hearted person,
someone who can poke fun at herself and the lifestyle she has chosen,
who doesn't mind exposing all of her vices, many of which made me cringe
a bit with familiarity. She strikes me as a compassionate person, when
she isn't dreaming up inventive tortures for harsh critics or other
writers for whom words seem to spill effortlessly onto the keyboard.
Such shocking passages are followed by her tongue-in-cheek admission
that she is an angry person. But aren't most writers now and again?
Don't we wish we could churn out page after perfect page? Don't we
seethe when a story over which we've toiled tirelessly is stained red by
the hand of that brave friend who dares to offer suggestions? Don't we
browse through the selections in the bookstore and grumble, "I could
write something better than this; why is he the one with the
million-dollar advance?"
If these sorts of demons plague you while rings form under your eyes from late nights staring into the word processor, pick up Bird By Bird
and find a kindred spirit, a fellow companion on the journey to
publication and, perhaps more importantly, preservation and
self-awareness. Because even if your writing never earns you a penny,
you've created something, something that is uniquely you, one small step
at a time.
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