Apr 22, 2014 / The Craft of Writing

Recommended Reading: Bird By Bird

There’s a book I turn to again and again when I’ve fired up my post editor but feel uninspired or just plain dejected: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birds_on_the_wire_-_crop_right.jpg">Birds on the Wire</a> by Colin (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>).

I referenced Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions in Writing and Life in last week’s “Five Posts to Write Right Now,” and we’ve used her in Blogging 101 assignments as well. Personally, I turn to this book again and again — when I’m staring down a blank screen and a deadline or feeling just not good enough, flipping to any page usually restores my perspective and helps unclog my thorniest word-jam.

The story of the book’s title sums it up perfectly:

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

How many more times and ways can we say it? Read this book.

How many more times and ways can we say it? Read this book.

If that’s not enough to get you to peck out a few words, I’ll let Anne continue to speak:

On perfectionism…

Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here — and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.

On the act of writing vs. the finished piece…

Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do — the actual act of writing — turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

On how writing and reading (and, by extension, blogging) make a difference:

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. 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.

It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

I’ll stop here, because this is Ms. Lamott’s book, not mine, but these quotes are a great snapshot of the tone and perspective that make this book so valuable.

As writers — or bloggers, or photographers, or insert-creative-pursuit here — it’s easy to get down on ourselves, to think that no one’s paying attention, or that we can’t possibly be as good as all the other amazing bloggers we read. For me, the beauty in Bird by Bird is that it helps me feel good again: about choosing to write, about dedicating myself to blogging, about my unique voice, about experimenting and making “messes” and playing with words and pictures to make stories.

Do you have go-to resources as a writer or photographer? What are they?

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    1. Natalie’s great — love her stuff. Her mantra (which I love) about not judging your work but just writing to get things out on paper / screen is gold.

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  2. I love this book! One of my fav ‘writing’ books, because it is about so much than writing…I may need to re-read it now as it’s been awhile 🙂
    Thank you for posting!

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  3. Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird is a classic. I also love Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life more for the exquisite prose than anything else. When I read her I just want to do better; try harder. I also return to Laura Whitcomb’s ‘Novel Shortcuts – Ten techniques that ensure a great first draft’ for guidelines on story-building.

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  4. Writing Down the Bones is a favourite of mine, too. I also love Peter Elbow’s Writing With Power, Alice LaPlante’s The Making of a Story, and Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer. I also think it’s good to review mechanics occasionally. Richard M. Coe’s Process, Form, and Substance is one of the university texts that I return to and like to work through again.

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  5. Years ago I went to a writer’s conference, I brought “Bird by Bird” and Stephen King’s “On Writing,” its been awhile since I’ve read these books, these are the books I must reread.

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  8. Thank u. 🙂 It helped me move beyond my 1st thought of not knowing what to write. Now i know to get to the best i just have to be me & let my thoughts flow.

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  11. Thanks for blogging about this book. I’d never heard of it till today and now definitely want to get a copy. As someone who has been in her brother’s shoes numerous times in my youth with coursework & deadlines, I wish I had had that advice back then. It would have saved many a tear.

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