Anne Lamott is a brilliant mentor to writers and to creative people in general. She spins her yarn with a conversational, west-coast style. In this book, she writes about redeeming our experiences to produce literature. She has learned many lessons in her life, and she shares their fruit in vivid detail here. She is most brilliant, in my opinion, not in her quality novels but when she functions as a memoir-writer-turned-spiritual-advisor.
What she says is foundational and important for every person who has to create a universe for her/his readers, users, or viewers. She shares lessons like: write “shitty first drafts,” focus on your childhood when everything was new, involve partners in your writing, and work through short assignments. She encourages writers to write out of their own experiences, passions, and unconscious mind. Indeed, Bird by Bird seems like a cross between the spiritual disciplines of creating and self-help for writers.
Lamott is not idealistic about the writer’s life. She contends that it consists of a lot of pain, hard work, devotion, and everything else that labor consists of. But she points out that in the end, writers put in a day’s hard work filled with stimulation and meaning, and even if their work never reaches wide audiences, those writers leave something behind. That touch of eternity is its own reward.
I like Lamott because God plays a role in her life and work. I also like her because she is abhorrently honest and straight-talking. She brings things to light about human nature (indeed about myself) that I would never get were I just to read some B-rate writer. Her style is extraordinarily entertaining. Philosophically, she says very little that hasn’t been said before, but she parrots that knowledge in a new, seductive, and creative way. That’s why she’s won all sorts of awards for her writings, and that’s why I cherish the opportunity to sift through her writings today.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
By Anne Lamott
Copyright (c) 1994
Second Edition
Anchor Books
ISBN13 9780385480017
Genre: Writing, Communication, Memoir
Page Count: 222
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