“Bird by Bird”— a Bestseller that Turns Amateurs into Exceptional Writers
By the one and only Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott is a true craftsman of words. She turns sentences into lyrics that form a melody in your mind as you absorb the myriad of irresistible laugh-out-loud stories interwoven with brilliant advice.
Her book, “Bird by Bird,” is filled with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions on how to be an effective writer, technique-wise and heart-wise. She helps aspiring authors become serious about their writing, all the while teaching them how to completely let go — not an easy feat.
What the book offers
Lamott has a dark sense of humour that I find absolutely irresistible. Her writing is to the point, witty and utterly intoxicating. I couldn’t put the book down. Reading it made me feel … happy, sad, compassionate, entertained and most importantly, wiser.
She doesn’t promise new writers book advances overflowing with milk and honey — she lays out the reality of a writer’s life in its rawest form. And she should know, Lamott’s father was a successful writer. She saw him work on one book after another, never making enough for a wealthy retirement but enough to put food on the table.
A successful writer herself, she says that it wasn’t until book number four that she finally saw a reasonable (financial) return on her investment, or as she calls it, “stopped being a starving artist.”
More than an author
Lamott isn’t just a practicioner; she also teaches writing and uses some of her students’ stories in the book. Their struggles, questions, insecurities, failures and successes.
She exposes the writing process for what it really is, including the emotions and thought processes, the ups and downs. She guides you how to overcome a blank page as well as what it takes to compose a masterpiece.
Her advice is mainly aimed at fiction writers, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it if you only write non-fiction. Her advice transcends genres, and the practical direction can be applied to all forms of writing.
I’m not going to go on for much longer because I don’t want to deprive you of experiencing this classic for yourself, but instead, I’ll leave you with a couple of gold nuggets — well, at least in my opinion— that might give you a sneak peek at what you can expect.
“Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t — and, in fact, you’re not supposed to — know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing. First you just point at what has your attention and take the picture.”
“A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.”
“If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days — listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off.”
“This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of — please forgive me — wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds.”
Sylvia is an Australian journalist and author of “Go to Sleep Late: And Other Advice for Night Owls”.
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