Miss Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird is one of my favourite books when
it comes to creative writing. It is also one of the first books that I did read
when I started getting interested in writing. While there are other books
written by her as well, the one that focuses on creative writing is Bird by
Bird. So, I have curated some of these snippets and lessons from this book.
Starting with,
1. Blennies are boring.
Write with Open Mind.
Blenny is the type of an undersea fish that lives in the deepest areas
of the sea, usually in rock bed. It keeps on sitting there in its tiny cave
with its partner and kids. Most of the blennies, in their short life, don’t
even rise to the surface of a sea let alone look above in the sky.
So, if I chose to write like a blenny, then most of my writing/poetry
will be about one corner of a rocky seabed. Not very interesting.
Saying this, Miss Lamott writes,
“Who knows what this
urge is all about, to appear somewhere outside, instead of feeling stuck inside
your muddled but stroboscopic mind, peering out like a little undersea animal
— a spiny blenny, for instance from inside your tiny cave?”
2. Pay Attention
Paying attention is of course an important characteristic for any kind
of creative writing or poetry.
Miss Lamott writes,
“There is ecstasy in paying attention.”
“Writing is about
learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on.”
(Yes)
“The writer is a
person who is standing apart, like the cheese in “The Farmer in the Dell”
standing there alone but deciding to take a few notes. You’re outside, but you
can see things up close through your binoculars.”
3. The Unparalleled
Mastery - Take it Bird by Bird
This is perhaps one of the biggest principles of every
great artist, which I am still trying to learn these days.
Talking about her brother, Miss Lamott writes, “Thirty
years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to
get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due
the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the
kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and
unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my
father sat down beside him, put his arm on my brother's shoulder, and said,
'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
Also, she says, “Every
writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they stick in the
chair. That's probably the main difference between you and them. Just take
it bird by bird.”
4. Treasure is in Little
Details. Be like a Spy. Listen.
This is my favorite.
Whock-a-boom, I am a spy spy spy!
“Learn to be like a
ship's rat, veined ears trembling, and learn to scribble it all down.”
“Listen to the sound
of the words.”
Listen listen.
5. The Writing Process
She explains
beautifully,
“You sit down, I say.
You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. So you sit down
at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in
the typewriter, or you turn on your computer and bring up the right file, and then
you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first,
and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the
clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on
the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind— a scene, a
locale, a character, whatever-the other voices in your mind. The other voices
are banshees and drunken monkeys. There may be a listing of things that must be
done right this moment: foods that must come out of the freezer, appointments
that must be canceled or made, hairs that must be tweezed. But you hold an
imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk.
…
Yet somehow in the
face of all this, you clear a space and you begin to compose sentences. You
begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to
communicate, to make real or imagined events come alive.”
6. Writing is a painful,
sometimes depressing work to do but if you do it well enough, people will
connect.
When we use the most depressing and painful feelings to write
something, the writing stirs people’s hearts and this is what the ultimate
purpose of any art form is. Describing this, Miss Lamott writes,
“When I was twenty-one, I had my tonsils removed. For the entire week
afterward, swallowing hurt so much that I could barely open my mouth for a
straw. The nurse told me that I needed to buy some gum, and to chew
it vigorously — the thought of which made me clutch at my throat. She explained
that when we have a wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to
protect it from any more violation and from infection, and that I would need to
use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again. I began to chew it. All the
pain was gone, permanently.
I think that something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They
cramp around our wounds—the pain. They keep us moving and writing in tight,
worried ways.”
7. Don’t be afraid of
Writing about Messy and Scary
“Clutter and mess
show us that life is being lived...Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of
suspended animation...”
8. Some bits…
“Don’t make a
character perfect - without faults it loses touch of reality”
“Write straight into
the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being
unliked.”
“As a writer, you
take all that you've listened, observed or overheard and turn it into gold. (Or
at least you try.)”
“Think of your writing as a gift to the world”
“No one cares if you write, so you have to. You’ll be old and grey
whether or not you express your creativity. But you’ll be sad if you don’t.”
“A Character is defined by its description and dialogue.”
“To create any character, the narrator/writer needs to see it in
him/herself, because the narrator is the one who holds the character together.”
Ending with,
“Tell the truth”
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