Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Though aimed at writers, this book is full of sage advice and razor-edged honesty for the average joe. If you're a writer--and I claim to be one--it's more than a few anecdotes and good advice; it's a lifeline in the thrashing seas of rough-draftdom, a foothold on the sands of jealousy and vain ambition. Anne makes it clear that writing must be pursued for something other than mere publication. (Though, to be honest, I know she's just trying to let the majority of us down easy.) Writing is about letting go, growing, facing truths, and holding on.

I'm hooked on Lamott. She slaps me in the face with her startling revelations, nudges me in the ribs with her unpredictable humor, and prods my frozen little writer's hands back into action with warm compassion. This book won't solve the mechanical aspects of my writing, or lead me on the path of structural excellence, but it will spark my creativity, free my characters to be true to themselves, and, ultimately, shake me from my doldrums back into the writing mode.

In a society addicted to mindless facts and information, "Bird by Bird" reminds us--writers or otherwise--that it's all about heart. Heart and mind and soul dancing together, even if they step all over each other's feet.


Expert writing advice with a funny and easy style.   April 27, 2001
 69 out of 74 found this review helpful

This author is a new find for me, but I will surely read much more of her. She is fabulously funny, incredibly informative, and absolutely generous with her thoughts and feelings and expertise on writing. The book warmed me, and made me feel that I could continue my writing with a stronger and better perspective. For aspiring writer's everywhere, and for writers published and not, this book will take you on a journey and offer invaluable advice for your hard work. It will help you revive that natural urge to write and keep you plugging away at the keyboard during the very worst of slumps. You will also laugh with Anne Lamott, the author, who is hilarious and honest and very witty. The practical and real life advice will stay with you as you struggle to become the writer you already are.


Funny, inspiring, & wise--but get your craft elsewhere   June 17, 2000
 59 out of 61 found this review helpful

If there's a better book to read when you're doubting yourselfand your writing ability, I don't know what it is. IF YOU WANT TOWRITE by Brenda Ueland may be more profound, but it's not as funny... I don't think Lamott copied Ueland at all. Both books are wonders, Ueland's more spiritual or mystical--i.e. how to express your own unique self and write your truth--and Lamott's more worldy--how to get your rear in gear and start producing copy. Lamott's chapter on crumby first drafts lets you know you must start somewhere and can't do that if you're constantly criticizng and editing yourself. And she is so right--once you have a beginning, you can make it better..and better...and better. She doesn't really tell you how to do that in very specific terms, but for that there's great sourcebooks like SELF EDITING FOR FICTON WRITERS and ON WRITING WELL, which more than cover the job. Bird by Bird may be short on craft, but it's long on motivation, humor, and practical ways to get yourself writing.


Caught in Lamott's witty spell   March 9, 2000
 55 out of 71 found this review helpful

Anne Lamott writes more eloquently than most on the trauma of writer's block. When a professor of mine spoke highly of BIRD BY BIRD, knowing I was studying flow for my own (subsequently bestselling) book WRITING IN FLOW, I was prepared to dislike it. After all, Lamott's novels are hardly famous, and the book she did begin to get known for is a memoir of the first year of her son's life. Since I started and stopped something similar, I was jealous.

But then I fell under her spell. Bird by Bird is a very funny book, and most of the humor is the endearingly self-deprecating kind. Besides, Lamott speaks openly of her own jealousy of any writer friend who is slightly more successful at the moment than she is. I'm a sucker for honesty.

Don't read this book to be entertained however. Read it to find out something about designing a plot, creating characters, and writing dialogue. Read it to find out how good writing happens. According to Lamott, it happens when "you sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your subconscious to kick in for you creatively." The honest part comes you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child."

This quick-reading book is filled with fresh anecdotes, personal revelations, and practical tips about taking notes, writing groups, and who should read your drafts. You complete it all in a rush ending with the reassuring sense that regular people, like the author and yourself, if you work harder than you expected to have to, can produce something very good. And although Lamott mainly writes about her own individual experiences, her insights and advice coincide nicely with what I found to be true by interviewing 76 top novelists and poets for my WRITING IN FLOW.


A lovely experience of a painful process   January 30, 2006
 38 out of 40 found this review helpful

BIRD BY BIRD: SOME INSTRUCTIONS ON WRITING AND LIFE by Anne Lamott is a lovely, lovely, lovely book! Of course it is about writing, but it is also about any kind of longterm endeavor that is challenging, that creates self-doubt, and that is a channel for self _expression and self actualization. Lamott's Christianity and general spirituality, which is expressed in this book as a side note to her writing focus, is warm and friendly, and her personality, humorous and inclusive and confident, is wonderful for the reader to share. I LOVED the process of reading this book, of being with it.

This book has a charming and engaging introduction and then is divided into parts on Writing (which includes chapters called "Getting Started," "Short Assignments," "Perfectionism," "False Starts," "Plot Treatment," and "How Do You Know When You're Done?"), The Writing Frame of Mind (with chapters like "The Moral Point of View," "Broccoli," "Radio Station KFKD," and "Jealousy"), Help Along the Way ("Index Cards," Calling Around," "Writing Groups," and "Someone to Read Your Drafts" and "Writer's Block"), and final sections called "Publication -- and Other Reasons to Write" and "The Last Class."

While I actually think the writing lessons of this book are secondary to the wonderful life lessons this book contains, I have found myself using these lessons. I love the idea that first drafts can be BAAAAAAAAAAD with no harm to anyone! It's incredibly liberating and freeing, and allows one to write whatever one has to write with self-permission to do a bad job the first time round because you know you'll correct it later on. If you write ANYTHING this book will give you practical, helpful advice to advance and improve.

I underlined in this book, which is something that as a librarian's daughter, I almost never do, but this book feels like a reference, a guide, in a way that other works do not. I underlined things like, "Hope is a revolutionary patience" on page xxiii and "Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything on earth" on page 15.

Lamott quotes from other wondrous writers, she writes about events in her own life that elevate her and that enervate her. But everything she writes is about taking lots of small steps in one direction. I literally laughed and cried while reading this wonderful and wondrous memoir about the process of writing and how life's pains and joys illustrate this process for Lamott ... I nearly wished I still taught freshman composition so I could use it as a text book. It is the most honest, charming, personable and true description of the painful and rewarding act of writing that I have ever read. I recommend it to anyone, writer or not, who is engaged in a longterm, or even lifelong endeavor. Anne Lamott will simultaneously soothe and inspire any reader of BIRD BY BIRD.