Bird by Bird.

Bird By Bird.
Ornithologists be warned: Strangely enough, it has nothing to do with birds!
I just recently read this unconventional book about writing, by Anne Lamott.
I remember seeing a review of it, where the reviewer commented: This is Anne Lamott, for heaven's sake...and that means it's funny!
I agree, and this being the only Lamott book I have ever read, I did not know ahead of time it would be this funny, so that was a pleasant surprise. It is indeed, quite humorous, in a self-effacing and irreverently honest sort of way.
I like funny.
I believe there is always a place for funny.
Well, wait a minute, that is an exaggeration.... [there is not one thing funny about several peacekeepers right now this very evening awaiting certain execution in Iraq, for instance] but what I really mean to say is that there is very seldom a topic or situation that cannot be enlivened and enhanced, or “brought home to the reader” through the use of well-placed humor.
In this, Lamott is a true artist. Her humorous approach to this topic of writing and the writer’s life, makes me want to go on and read her other books about faith and the religious life. How badly (in my opinion) we need a bit of laughter injected into any relevant discussion of these topics, in order for them to make sense at all.

What impressed me the most about Lamott’s book, was how she simply and gently advocated several practical ideas that, in combined dosage, could really unleash the writer within me. Reading (and believing / absorbing) this book is like granting yourself a license to write!
We all have a story to tell, Lamott says (I am wildly paraphrasing). She encourages us to not set out to be writing War and Peace if we are merely trying to record the details of a childhood experience. Or trying to write a humorous story about Uncle Fred’s obsession with tractors and other farm machinery. Or writing a wee story about a family that has wild body odor.
JUST WRITE, she says. If you want to write it, then that is what makes it important to do so!
And as you do it, you will develop your art and broaden your appeal in a way that means more and more people may be interested in reading and appreciating what you write!
But the key is... WRITE.
One must write, in order to be read.

So it is that she entitles one chapter “Shitty First Drafts” and follows it up with one called “Perfectionism”. In these chapters she is directly addressing some of the major things that have hindered my own writing, at times. It is this desire to write the perfect thing in the first go-around. Lamott says this is a killer.
She tells us that “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper.”
This is so good. This is so important. It is a validation, from a successful writer.... to JUST WRITE. To not worry (yet) of how your reader will be reading it.
All of the revisionary stuff comes at a later point.
Oh, if I could learn this!

Some other extremely practical [useful] advice is found in the chapter nakedly entitled “Index Cards”.
It’s about index cards.
Lamott encourages writers to follow her own example of keeping a healthy stock of index cards, or some such readily available writing material nearby at all times.
What she is doing here is really asking me to revise my own writing-on-everything-in-the-world-including-paper-napkins-and-my-own-hand-and-arm method.
I am the Scrap Piece of Paper King. I have inadvertently thrown many a great idea into the washing machine, trapped in the pockets of my jeans. Or I will write on my own right hand (I’m a southpaw) some kind of scribblage, and then avoid taking a shower for a few days because I don’t want to wash off this great idea!
I should buy some INDEX CARDS or something.

The chapter on “Dialogue” was fabulous. If your characters are going to be “real” at all, they better talk “real”. Then there is the danger of overusing regional dialect, oh this is important, methinks.
Thez mebbe nuthin’ what’s moh ‘mpotant than thett theh ‘dvice! Am I right Uncle Dad?

What do people mean when they continually make note of the fact that Lamott is irreverent? You see this comment everywhere. Well... it is just that she laces everything that she says with stuff like this: I worry that Jesus drinks himself to sleep when he hears me talk like this. (p.170).
Or, her explanation of what the radio station call letters “KFKD” stand for (p.116).... [you must read it for yourself, as this blogpage is only rated PG-13.]
I find it wonderfully delightful, this kind of constant witticism.... this constant poking at seriousness with sticks of humor.
But yet, it is done well. It fits!
In other words, it is NOT like watching an episode of Gilmore Girls.

One of the greatest things I have gleaned from this book is that writers do not (should not) write simply in order to be published. If you are a writer, you will write, and continue to write, even if publication is never ever realized. She dispels the myth of instant monetary success and accolades and even PERSONAL fulfillment that are sometimes thought of as the ipso facto rewards of a publishing house seeing value in your work.
‘Taint always lakk thet!

And furthermore, she really emphasizes the importance of writing FOR certain people in one’s life. In other words, she wrote a book that she wanted to see completed before her own father died.
And she did it.
She wanted to write another book and have it finished before her best friend Pammy died from cancer.
And she did it.
These were not deadlines to meet.
They were lifelines to meet.

And so all in all, I found this book absolutely wonderful. I could say much more about it but this has probably already been Trollopian enough of me.
I highly recommend Bird by Bird to anyone who really wants to dig down deep into the potatoes and gravy of what writing is.

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