Bird by Bird

Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the
intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. -
Buddha

Weather forecast: A few flurries ending this morning then sunny. Wind northwest 40 km/h gusting to 60 becoming north 30 this morning then becoming light this afternoon. High minus 2. UV index 4 or moderate.

Actual weather: Gloriously sunny, high winds, cold.

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My wonderful friend from Alaska sent me a book on writing, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. The reason I so love it -- beside the facts that 1) it's from Becs and 2) it's a gift and who could hate that? -- is that Anne seems so emotionally fragile. She's also very funny. The book is based on content from a class she teaches on writing.

Here are a few things from her book that I'd like to share with you to give you hope and make you smile -- maybe even get you thinking.

"Nor do they [my students] want to hear that it wasn't until my fourth book came out that I stopped being a starving artist. The do not want to hear that most of them probably won't get published and that even fewer will make enough to live on. But their fantasy of what it means to be published has very little to do with reality."

"... good writing is about telling the truth."

On the panic that sets in when sitting down to write: "... all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being."

"For me and most other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts."

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people."

"Just don't pretend that you know more about your characters than they do, because you don't Stay open to them. It's teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It's that simple."

"Plot grows out of character."

On dialogue: "... we have all the pleasures of voyeurism because the characters don't know we are listening."

That's as far as I've read. More tomorrow.

I wish you a day of good writing!

C