Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life - Anne Lamott
by Zia ~ December 6th, 2005. Filed under: Books.
“You have to read this book,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “There were some sections that totally reminded me of you.”
Then she proceeded to read me one of the sections in question:
Being a writer guarantees that you will spend too much time alone — and that as a result, your mind will begin to warp. If you are in a small workspace, your brain will begin breathing and contracting like the sets in Dr. Caligari. You may begin showing signs of schizophrenia — like you’ll stare at the word schizophrenia for so long that it will start to look wrong and you won’t be able to find it in the dictionary and you’ll start to think you made it up, and then you’ll notice a tiny mouth sore, one of those tiny canker sores that your tongue can’t keep away from, that feels like a wound the size of a marble, but when you go to study it in the mirror, you see that it is a white spot roughly as big as a pinhead. Still, the next thing you know — because you are spending too much time alone – you are convinced that you have mouth cancer, just like good old Sigmund, and you know instantly that doctors will have to cut away half of your jaw, trying to save your miserable obsessive-compulsive head from being cannibalized by the cancer, and you’ll hav to go around wearing a hood over your entire face, and no one will ever want to kiss you again, not that they ever really did.
Frankly, I didn’t know whether to hug Elizabeth for proving that I’m not alone in my hypochondria or to smack her for giving me yet another thing to worry about.
I did, however, buy the book, and it’s filled with little pearls of wisdom that inspire one to plunk down consistently and work on one’s own stuff. Highly recommend for all writers out there who love the idea of the writing life and hate the actual writing …
December 6th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
I love Anne Lamott. A big fan, yes I am. After BbB, you should also read her latest: Plan B - Further Thoughts on Faith. For a total immersion on her work here are a few cool links:
Her Salon.com column:
http://dir.salon.com/topics/anne_lamott/
Her interview with Terri Gross on NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4536798
Amazon link
December 6th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
You can always trust a good writer with an opening line like this: “On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all of life was hopeless, and I would eat myself to death…”
December 6th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Cool beans, thanks for the links!
December 6th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
There Zia goes again wanting to hit someone…She can be such a violent woman. What she neglected to tell you is the reason why I loved the book so much was that it hit home for me, too. All paranoia and schizophrenia aside, of course. I read Bird by Bird something like 13 years ago. (God, I feel old!). And, honestly, I have done almost no work for myself in close to a decade. The book is an inspiration. A kick in the pants. I loved Anne’s sense of humor, her way of making something comical out of the utter psychotic thoughts many of us have on a daily basis, and I loved that she is wonderfully, brutally honest.
That, and I’m sure I’ll live to regret this, is also why Zia is such a dear friend, even when she smacks me around a little. I hope she beats me senseless until I get off my butt and actually write something for myself again.
My favorite passage of the many dog-eared pages in the book: “I don’t think you have the time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good enough at it, and I don’t think you have time to waste on someone who does not respond to you with kindness and respect. You don’t want to spend time with people who make you hold your breath. You can’t fill up when you’re holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and smells run like water—just as writing is also about dealing with the emptiness…”
Yes, so back to it. And the thoughts about how to spell schizophrenia.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:41 am
Your comment made me laugh …
December 9th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
I love Anne Lamott too, but recommend reading Traveling Mercies BEFORE reading Plan B (the follow-up). My two cents.