What do You think about Bird By Bird: Some Instructions On Writing And Life (1995)?
5/31/09:This may be the single best book I have ever read in my entire life. It is helping me get my work done, on a daily basis; it helped me see where I do fit in life (my niche); and it helped me see how utterly not alone I am. It's a wonderful thing.All of which I had inklings of prior to reading this book, but Lamott confirmed it. Validation is such a sweet quality.If you want to understand me, read this book, and then you will. Seriously.I usually write favorite quotations from a book in a journal I keep with me, but this one had too many for that; so I switched to typing them. I have 15 typed pages of favorite quotes. I am considering printing out the best quotes in sign form and taping them up to my office walls. That's how inspirational I find them. In fact, that is a fabulous idea; and I fully plan to do it, just as soon as I get done gloating about how much I loved this book.I would say this is my new "bible" if that would not be offensive to people.Thank you, Laurie, for the recommendation. This is why it's important to share your favorite books with people. This is why paying attention to what others are reading is important. My friends most of all taught me this, and for that I am grateful. Laurie is my most literary friend, who has gifted me with books that have always changed my world for the better.Now I just need to figure out how to get a letter of thanks to Anne Lamott. She is a kindred spirit. She is fabulous. I can't wait to read all of her books. Maybe someday she'll read my books too. I can't wait.5/6:This book is incredible. I want to just devour it, but I also want to write down so many things I have read in it, to not ever forget them.So far I'm putting into practice her suggestions with what I feel are good results. Specifically, to write what I know, starting with writing down all my childhood memories ("Remember you own what happened to you," Lamott says.); also to write every day at approximately the same time, no matter what. (Mornings work better for me, fresh mind, the craziness of the day not yet pressing in on me. So I have been writing at 8 in the morning, every day, with good results, already, I feel.)***Here are some of my favorite quotes so far:“Think of a fine painter attempting to capture an inner vision, beginning with one corner of the canvas, painting what he thinks should be there, not quite pulling it off, covering it over with white paint, and trying again, each time finding out what his painting isn’t, until finally he finds out what it is.“And when you do find out what one corner of your vision is, you’re off and running. And it really is like running. It always reminds of the last lines of Rabbit, Run: ‘his heels hitting heavily on the pavement at first with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing lighter and quicker and quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Runs.’”~p. 9, 10"My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean. Aren't you?" ~p. 15***And then there is this fabulous poem she includes in her book, written by Phillip Lopate. It's an example of how you can use your paranoia, your germaphobia, or whatever mental issues you are dealing with, to your benefit. I think it's fantastic; here it is:We who areyour closest friendsfeel the timehas come to tell youthat every Thursdaywe have been meeting, as a group,to devise waysto keep youin perpetual uncertaintyfrustrationdiscontent and tortureby neither loving youas much as you wantnor cutting you adrift.Your analyst isin on it,plus your boyfriendand your ex-husband;and we have pledgedto disappoint youas long as you need us.In announcing our associationwe realize we haveplaced in your handsa possible antidoteagainst uncertaintyindeed against ourselves.But since our Thursday nightshave brought us to a community of purposerare in itselfwith you as the natural center,we feel hopeful youwill continue to make unreasonabledemands for affectionif not as a consequenceof your disastrous personalitythen for the good of the collective.***This book so far is a breath of fresh air. I'm reading all the things I have felt so very deeply my entire life, and it is validating. It gives me hope that I can actually do this, that I can actually be a successful, a real, writer.More to come, I am sure! I am only on page 17.4/15:I want to write a book. I attempt to work on this project, but I do not get very far. My friend Laurie is a writer (I'm still an aspiring one) and she recommended this book. I just ordered it from the library and am excited to read my first book on writing. I am sure I'll read many more before I do achieve my goal to write my own book. It's a step forward, a good starting point. I am excited.
—Naomi
If I could give this book a 6 star ratings, I wouldn't.I would give it a 10 star rating.My first Anne Lamott and first on writing. And the first is always special, no? No. this book would have been special even if I'd have read it after reading a whole library on the art of writing. You know why?Ofcourse you don't. You haven't read the book.Well. Because this book made me cry. It made me cry because I laughed too hard and the tears leaked out of my eyes and became a perfect cliche.There are so many instances that are so true and so funny and sometimes true but not funny... though insightful.. and you think this is the best book I bought this year. (I had it shipped. It wasn't available. Best money spent.)Check out some words in there - “Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)” “If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door.”“If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in.”“But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?" You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind -- a scene, a locale, a character, whatever -- and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.”“I took notes on the people around me, in my town, in my family, in my memory. I took notes on my own state of mind, my grandiosity, the low self-esteem. I wrote down the funny stuff I overheard. I learned to be like a ship's rat, veined ears trembling, and I learned to scribble it all down.”I wish I could quote the whole book. Just type away and re-live all the words. Maybe that's illegal, copyright infringement or something.And that is why it is imperative that you go and buy a copy of this book. BUY and not borrow so you can always come back to it. That is, if you have a sense of humor and good taste. Only then.
—Aditi
I'm of two minds about this book.As an autobiography, it's actually quite good, especially the latter half. Lamott is good at talking about her own life in a way that feels genuine and touching, and when she recounts anecdotes she is, for the most part, really engaging.The problem is that this... isn't an autobiography. It's not even in that weird in-between place that a lot of science writing often is, where stories of discovery are intertwined inextricably with stories of life. This is first and foremost a book about writing and therefore it's unfortunate that that's where it fails.I should add a caveat here: I'm sure this is a functional writing book if you're more like Lamott. If, for instance, you're interested in writing semi-autobiographical fiction (or true autobiography), or 'literary fiction' - which I'm not; and as someone who prefers 'genre' fiction I'm perpetually frustrated at writing books which claim to be universal only because they assume their subject is all that's important. It probably also helps if, like Lamott, you're privileged and comfortable with it: comfortable enough to use phrases like 'ethnic people', or 'like a huge autistic child', or you think generalized insecurities qualify as 'mental illness' (and refer to them as such over and over and over), or toss out jokes about lobotomies, or describe people with a list of ways they're different from you first and foremost. I'm sure it's liberating to be able to describe South American writers as 'like primitive art' and not have any second thoughts, or to know so little about autism that you use the word to refer to an emotional state.What I'm saying here is that Lamott, as a writer addressing me as an audience, made me feel profoundly alienated. As a person with actual diagnosed mental illness - as the only non-autistic person in my apartment - as a queer person - as a white person who makes a conscious effort to be aware of race in society and in my life, there's something in the casual way she treads all over these things that was incredibly uncomfortable to read.That's made worse by the fact that once you get past all the casual ableism and racism and heterosexism, the writing advice really isn't that good. The first 95 pages of this book are pretty much all just 'keep writing no matter what' in different phrasings, substantiated by anecdotes. Very little of what Lamott says will be new information to anyone who's been writing for a while, especially if they've read other books on writing. Some of her information is (by dint of the book being 20 years old) irrelevant by dint of being out of date. Most of it is just banal. (A very small portion is plain bad, as in this: "Mondays are not good writing days. One has had all that freedom over the weekend, all that authenticity, all those dreamy dreams, and then your angry mute Slavic Uncle Monday arrives, and it is time to sit down at your desk. So I would simply recommend to the people in my workshops that they never start a large writing project in any Monday in December."I was also struck by how derisive Lamott is towards her own former workshop students. The phrase that stood out to me most is this: "Sometimes when a student calls and is mewling and puking about the hopelessness of trying to put words down on paper..." That's the most egregious example of a general trend throughout the book: she seems to look down on her students and especially on their attitudes towards writing, treating them as if they're pathetic, ignorant, and care only about publication. It was uncomfortable to read, and I can only imagine how it would feel to be one of her former students and see onesself categorized in such a callous, dismissive way.At the end of the day, what good there was in this book is far outweighed by the amount of it which is useless. You'll get about as much out of the full 200+ pages as you do from reading the anecdote on the back, which pretty perfectly encapsulates what Lamott goes on about ad nauseum. If you're looking for something with actual writing advice, look elsewhere. I suggest this podcast, which covers everything from getting over block to specific subgenres to getting published, and is funnier to boot.
—Anila
