Bird by Bird.

When I asked readers for suggestions for books about writing, the second-most cited book, after Stephen King’s On Writing, was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. It’s a wonderful, slim book of short but very potent essays on just about everything related to writing, with an emphasis on fiction (and, at that, I’d say the short form), but much of it is also applicable to other forms of writing or merely the act of writing itself. It inspired me, and I say that as someone who is infrequently inspired at this point, even when it comes to writing about things I enjoy.

The book is filled with advice, and I don’t want to reproduce much of it here, because you should go read the book itself, and also because the advice just sounds much better in Lamott’s voice, with her wry humor and copious examples. She draws extensively on her experience teaching writing classes as well as writing for herself, allowing her to speak about things like writer’s block, creating credible characters, publishing, not publishing, and more in both her own voice and those of her students. I found nearly all of this advice to either ring true to my own experiences – especially that on writer’s block, something I haven’t truly experienced, because I can always just write something else and get things moving again – or to answer questions I’ve always had, such as how to do things like create those credible characters or write dialogue that sounds true, both to how people talk (which isn’t as easy as it sounds) and to the characters speaking it.

There’s plenty in here on getting started, which is something I often hear from aspiring writers is a huge part of the problem – they want to write, but can’t figure out how to begin. (With the first word, of course.) Lamott has sage advice on reasons to write, and reasons not to do so – not if you think it’s a quick route to wealth, or financial freedom, or popularity; if you doubt her, she has plenty of failure stories from her own career, from books rejected by publishers to dealing with self-doubt and the voices in her head that love to tell her she’s not any good at writing. (She is, though. Very.) It’s always helpful to know that other writers, especially those who have had more success than I have or have had longer careers, deal with the same kind of doubts and impostor syndrome that I do, and to be reminded that writing is its own end. Writing should give you joy, to use the popular bromide of the day. If it doesn’t, don’t do it. If it does, then how much you make from it – if you make anything at all, if you even publish – doesn’t matter. 

Lamott is an irreverent writer who is perhaps best known for some of her writing on faith, including the best-selling Traveling Mercies, and while her beliefs do show up in the pages here, I thought it was always in service of her larger points, without proselytizing or excluding; on the contrary, she goes out of her way to include people of all faiths and no faiths in the book. I can’t say I was concerned – I try to read as diverse a set of authors as possible – but I include this for anyone who might have felt disinclined to read for Bird by Bird for this reason.

The title of Bird by Bird comes from a wonderful anecdote within an early essay that, in short, is the writing equivalent of taking it one day at a time. One of the biggest obstacles I have always faced as a writer, regardless of my subject, has been the discouragement I feel when I think about the whole project – its size, yes, but my ability to complete it, and make it good, and in a timely fashion, and not to be distracted by that thing I’ve been meaning to bake or that game I’ve wanted to play. So much of Bird by Bird comprises gentle reminders that you can do this, and it’s okay to fail, or think you’re going to fail. Just keep going, bird by bird.

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I also read another of your recommendations, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing. It’s a twee book with advice written to look like verse, in a voice that would make me think violent thoughts about any teacher who lectured in it. There’s some useful advice buried within it, but I encountered at least as much advice that I would say I violate every time I start to write, and while it’s written by a journalist largely for journalists, I’m not sure how much of the counsel here I’d truly endorse. I did enjoy the last 50 pages, with examples of bad writing from students he’s taught over the years, which ranges from the execrable to the unintentionally hilarious. It’s more than a matter of laughing at bad writing, but many of the examples illuminate problems with the language itself, ways in which English, or a lack of command of it, can lead us astray. There’s value in that. Perhaps he should have made three-fourths of the book out of that, and limited his advice to the remainder – without the pompous formatting.