Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Feb. 9th, 2010 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainbowunicorn_readsWriting can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up.
There's no point in writing hopeless novels.
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.
This is what separates artists from ordinary people: The belief deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think that is a wonderful kind of person to be.
When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves, or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.
I am afraid of calling myself a writer. In fact, I deliberately shy away from using that term to describe myself, preferring the safer "blogger", or "crafter" or the new-agey "dreamer". It scares me that people will laugh, see the many typos and grammatical errors in my entries and scoff at my gall to use that holy, sacred word meant for people with impeccable grammar, who can churn out meaningful entries each day without using imageposts as crutch for writer's block, or those witty enough to imply with words that they are smiling without having to resort to the use of smiley faces at the end of their entries.
But this book makes me want to write, it makes me want to call myself a writer, just because no one should stop me. It gives you the permission to create mistakes, to be vain and obsessive, even to love wholeheartedly, which is what a writer should be doing--connecting with this world and everything in it.
Almost each page was lovingly filled with words of wisdom and encouragement, urging the reader to just dive as well as she can and to forget all the negativity that hinders their growth as "writers".
"I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good enough at it, and I don't think you have time to waste in someone who does not respond to you with kindness and respect. You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can't fill up when you're holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water, just as writing is also about dealing with emptiness."
I'm still hesitant about calling myself a writer, and I'm hoping someday I get to be as good as Lamott, but for the meantime, I'm sticking to this year's resolution to write more, and getting inspiration from wonderful writers I admire. If you ever got the feeling of being stuck and wanting some inspiration, this book is definitely a huge help. Even if you don't fancy yourself a writer, her tips are pretty much applicable to life in general, and everything is delivered in a nice older-sister/aunt kind of way, that you can't help but listen.
Aside from writing more, I also vow to love more, since I got inspired by this quote from the book:
A big heart is both a clumsy and delicate thing: it doesn't protect itself and it doesn't hide.
What I think: 10 unicorns
There's no point in writing hopeless novels.
A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.
This is what separates artists from ordinary people: The belief deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think that is a wonderful kind of person to be.
When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves, or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.
I am afraid of calling myself a writer. In fact, I deliberately shy away from using that term to describe myself, preferring the safer "blogger", or "crafter" or the new-agey "dreamer". It scares me that people will laugh, see the many typos and grammatical errors in my entries and scoff at my gall to use that holy, sacred word meant for people with impeccable grammar, who can churn out meaningful entries each day without using imageposts as crutch for writer's block, or those witty enough to imply with words that they are smiling without having to resort to the use of smiley faces at the end of their entries.
But this book makes me want to write, it makes me want to call myself a writer, just because no one should stop me. It gives you the permission to create mistakes, to be vain and obsessive, even to love wholeheartedly, which is what a writer should be doing--connecting with this world and everything in it.
Almost each page was lovingly filled with words of wisdom and encouragement, urging the reader to just dive as well as she can and to forget all the negativity that hinders their growth as "writers".
"I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good enough at it, and I don't think you have time to waste in someone who does not respond to you with kindness and respect. You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can't fill up when you're holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water, just as writing is also about dealing with emptiness."
I'm still hesitant about calling myself a writer, and I'm hoping someday I get to be as good as Lamott, but for the meantime, I'm sticking to this year's resolution to write more, and getting inspiration from wonderful writers I admire. If you ever got the feeling of being stuck and wanting some inspiration, this book is definitely a huge help. Even if you don't fancy yourself a writer, her tips are pretty much applicable to life in general, and everything is delivered in a nice older-sister/aunt kind of way, that you can't help but listen.
Aside from writing more, I also vow to love more, since I got inspired by this quote from the book:
A big heart is both a clumsy and delicate thing: it doesn't protect itself and it doesn't hide.
What I think: 10 unicorns