Bird by Bird Review

I just finished Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.  This is a book full of writing advice recommended to me by some folks in my writing group.

Lamott says to make a shitty first draft.  No one will ever see it.  It can be sentimental and nonsensical and self-involved.  It's shittiness is okay because you can change it later.  I've heard this advice all over the place, that you should just vomit out whatever you're thinking and fix it later.  It's the cornerstone of National Novel Writing Month.  I happen to be writing the shittiest first draft ever to hide on Google Docs, so this advice pleases me.

She advises is to give yourself short, doable writing assignments.  She says you should write only what fits in a 1" by 1" picture frame.  My writing group tends to think this is weird when I talk about doing it.  Although, I talk about it differently.  While Lamott talks about just describing the kitchen or just writing how warm the sun feels, I make to do lists of a bunch o tiny things that need to get done.  This is usually when I'm editing.  "Figure out what that word is that means you're writing something that only you will enjoy and no one else will be interested.  'Self-involved' isn't quite right."  Or "Fix awkward sentence on page 84."  Or "This description of the sun is not singing like I'd like.  Try again."  So mine are almost always more about editing rather than writing, and therefore only fits in a 1" by 1" frame if the frame is even more metaphorical than the one she talks about.

She says to keep a flock of index cards all over the house so you can write down your ideas as they come to you.  This doesn't work for me at all, because I need to be obsessively organized or nothing.  I can't just have drifts of note cards floating around my house.  But then she talked about how it's not really having the note card and seeing it later that reminds you of the idea.  It's the act of writing the idea down on a note card that cements the idea in your mind.  This I can get behind.  I tell my students to do this all the time.  It works great for kinesthetic learners.  "It doesn't matter if you never come back to your notes, take them anyway."  And "The real purpose of a crib sheet is to make it, because making it makes you study all the material." 

So, as with all other books and all other advice, take what you can use and just leave the rest behind.

Two things she said and one thing she didn't say really stood out for me.

First, she talked about how her writing students would always ask her where to start and she would say something like "Write everything you remember about Kindergarten!" or "Write about school lunches!" and her students would be upset because that's completely random and not something they want to write about or not related to their big project.  But her point was that it gets you writing, and as you're writing some idea will pop up and that will strike you as what you want to write about.  Yes!  Exactly!  This is what I'm talking about with writing prompts and bingo prompts.  It's not really about the prompt.  It's about getting yourself moving until the story starts revealing things to you, until you circle around in the writing prompt you're doing to really writing for your big project. 

Second, she talked about radio station KFKD (K Fucked) that plays in your head while you're writing.  It tells you how awful you are.  Yes!  This!  This happens to me and this name is fantastic and I will forever refer to it as such.

Finally, every chapter in this book is kind of a piece of writing advice, kind of a personal story that relates in a subtle, interesting way to the piece of writing advice, because--after all--this is instructions on writing and life.  I've been thinking lately that this blog is just stupid.  It's full of itself and no one cares and I'm not saying anything thought out or new or eloquent or remotely researched.  And reading this I thought, "This is what I need to be doing."  I need to tell a story, which I think is actually something I've said before that I ought to be doing on this blog.  That's ringing a bell now. 

The part of me that has all this pent up creative energy with no outlet says, "Yes!  I want to do that.  That sounds great!  That will fix all my problems and make me a better writer and it'll be fun."

Then the part of me that lives in reality says, "But if I do that, I'll actually have to put some work into my posts.  I don't have time for that.  I barely have time for NaNo and showering.  I'll have to write a shitty first draft and edit and everything."

So now it's on my list of "Things I'll Do when I'm a Full Time Writer Again" where it will probably stay for a while.