Bird by Bird

Author: Anne Lamott

Rating: ⭐ 4/5

Date Read: 2016/11/28

Pages: 238

As writers go, I tend to be fairly lazy. On an intellectual level, I’m fully aware that writing mostly involves sitting down and actually writing. I get that the best way to work through writer’s block is to just write anyway, and I also get that none of my pieces are going to come bursting like Athena from the head of Zeus, divine and fully formed. Most of the time, I manage to break through the lazy and actually get stuff done. Still, I’m constantly searching for that one weird trick that will minimize my efforts while simultaneously providing me with David Foster Wallace level output and Dan Brown level money.

Naturally, I began my love affair with books about writing back in high school, when my oeuvre mostly consisted of Alanis Morissette level poetry. Reading books about writing, and writers, makes me feel particularly productive without actually producing anything. I like to remind myself that Stephen King once said “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” (Note, Stephen King also wrote a book about writing, which I’ve read and reread in myriad moments of weakness and insecurity, then cursed at when I realized I once again had to get back to writing). Plus, it’s nice to remember that Hemingway was often miserable and Fitzgerald was an alcoholic with a crazy wife. I’m an envious person, and I find schadenfreude restorative.

And yes, I fully understand that all those sections on plot and character development and living a writerly life are not particularly relevant when you mainly write academic nonfiction. I’m an intelligent person, and I’ve worked with some very smart graduate advisors who have made similar points before exasperatedly encouraging me to get back down to the lab and keep going. But still, I found Bird by Bird to be a useful meditation on writing. If only Anne Lamott had shared her real secrets, instead of adding another voice to the choir of people imploring me to just get back to work already.