Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life | 
"Hope begins in the dark,
the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come.
You wait and watch and work:
you don‘t give up.
It‘s like driving at night.
You can only see as far as your headlights,
but you can make the whole trip that way.
You don‘t have to see where you‘re going,
you don‘t have to see your destination,
or everything you will pass along the way.
You just have to keep going."
so-soAm I little disappointed that this is definitely mostly 'instructions on writing' rather than a memoir, and there was nary a bird in sight? Yeah, but it's clearly not written with me as the target demographic in mind. I think it could have value for those who take up writing as a profession or a pastime, but I'm not really qualified to guarantee its usefulness. 1/?
Worth putting the Acknowledgements at the front of the book when you get material like this. ☺️🦖⛰️
pickFirst time I‘d ever actually LOL‘d at a book
10/10
pickPart of me lamented that I took so long to read this, but a major part of me is grateful that I read it when I really needed it. It inspired me, so much so that I‘ve begun writing fiction again after a long break. I loved Lamott‘s insights and her humor. I especially loved her methods for getting to know a character and her emphasis on focusing on our own truths. This one has earned a permanent spot on my list of favorite books on writing.
“Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it.”
“Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.”
“When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader.”
“To be great, art has to point somewhere.”
“Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos or meaning. All of us can sing the same song, and there will still be four billion different renditions.”
“It helps to resign as the controller of your fate.”
“…truth is a hard apple to catch and it is a hard apple to throw.”
“You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind… Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.”
Tagged is one of my current reads that‘s on my nightstand at the moment. I have reads I started but haven‘t finished: What Color is Your Parachute, Perspective Made Easy, and 100 Years of Solitude (in Spanish). Then there‘s a few I just never put away lol: Lore of the Wild, Mystical Places, and Spiritual Places. Oh, and a pocket book of word search puzzles. I really need to organize my nightstand lol.
#sundayfunday @BookmarkTavern
“…that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind…”
“Find out what each character cares most about in the world because then you will have discovered what‘s at stake.”
“Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist‘s true friend.”
“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer.”
I‘ve neglected my writing for far too long as I focused on other mediums and goals, but I‘ve been craving it and felt like I needed some inspiration. I haven‘t read this one before and it‘s been on my shelf forever…
pickThis book had been recommended to me several times but, to my shame, I'd scorned it as a "beginner's book". That'll teach me! Two years after completing my poetry collection, I'm still unable to return to the page.
This does have basic exercises, but primarily it's concerned with mindset.
The gallows humour was a welcome surprise, except for the times she went too far and made me wince.
Glad I read it: as for how efficacious it turns out to be...
so-soBird by Bird started off really well for me. The language Anne uses is engaging and descriptive. Later, though, it started to feel more muddy and I started feeling like I was having to slog through it. It lost some interest and started to sound more jaded and troubled. I found myself feeling like I had to force myself to keep reading.
pickRead this again. It‘s so spot on about the writing life. I laughed and nodded my head throughout. She gets it (and talks about) writing and the accompanying stress/imposter syndrome/crappy first drafts/jealousies all in a way that I truly love.
pickI did not expect this book to be as humorous as it was.
Read for #booked2022 #titlerepeatsitself
@Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft
pickI reread this book—nearly 14 years after my first reading—on the recommendation of author Daniel Pink. Do you have any influencers whose recommendations you often follow? Read my full review here: https://debbybrauer.org/#bird-by-bird-some-instructions-on-wr...
pan2/5⭐ This book is more about finding the spirit to write than about writing itself. Lamott uses humor and many stories from her own life throughout, some parts of which are entertaining. However, some of her comments are racist, and a large chunk of her humor is based on self-deprecation and extreme “jokes“ about suicide, mental illness, and alcohol and other drug abuse. #bookspinbingo
You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. [...] The rational mind doesn't nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.
I think that something similar happens to our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds—the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered in both—to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So those wounds never have a chance to heal. ⬇
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ As promised, this was lovely. Highly recommend if you write or think about writing.
#curiouscovers This is a wonderful book.
pickI first read this book in college, and I revisit it regularly. It has an irreverent tone that I find endearing, and it‘s full of wit and wisdom about reading, writing, and life. Narrator Susan Bennett does a fantastic job with the #audiobook on #Audible. (I also have paperback and Kindle copies of this book. I‘m slightly obsessed.)
My April #bookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks
Some of the books are in transit at the library, so I may end up swapping out if I don't get them in time.
Any Littens doing NaNoWriMo this month? We're at the halfway mark...How's it going? I'm playing along for the first time this year and so far it's been a really good experience. I've added 26000 words to a book I started working on in September and I'm trying to finish it by the end of the month. We'll see what happens. I'll be happy enough to hit 50k but bonus would be to finish the draft. 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
About to start this one, on the recommendation of the lovely Kirsty Greenwood. Anyone read it?
I cannot believe I‘ve never read this book. I‘ve already died laughing several times in the first two chapters. Also, “Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it‘s going to get.” ❤️ Pictured with some new coffee from Ecuador and roasted here in Morrison, CO! ☕️
And I don't think you have that kind of time either. I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it, and I don't think you have time to waste on 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...
pickGreat writing and very good advice for people who want to write. Very interesting and fun to read!
To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind...
pickWow. My second book for my 12 months project where I read a book on creativity a month and apply what it says. “Truth seems to want expression... when you open the closet door, and let what was inside out, you can get a rush of liberation and even joy.
If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don‘t bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth can destroy you.” Thank you Anne. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
pickFinally got around to reading this classic for writers. I got a little bored of Lamott‘s predictions about self-loathing and obsessiveness, but beyond that, she has some deeply insightful things to say about the writing life.
“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave.” #Miracle #QuotsyMar20
I was getting some stuff organized. Notebooks from 2009 to 2020.
Anyone else keep a journal of favorite lines or passages from books? I've just started doing this, but I so wish I had started years ago. I would love to revisit lines that spoke to me at other stages of my life.
