Bird by Bird Review - Part 1

It has been a hectic month, but I did manage to begin reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The title of the book comes from an incident in Lamott's childhood in which her older brother, trying to get a report on birds written for school, was advised by Lamott's father: "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." Lamott's advice to writers echos that of her father. She recommends tackling writing projects one small piece at a time as the best way to overcome the emotions that hinder writers from producing.

To illustrate, here is a sample of her advice:

"The first useful concept is the idea of short assignments.  Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel... or a play about the immigrant experience... But this is like trying to scale a glacier.  It's hard to get your footing... Then your mental illnesses arrive at the desk like your sickest most secretive relatives. ...as the panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating and I realize the well has run dry  ...I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that 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." 

I think that is great advice, at least for me personally. It is so easy to become stagnant in the face of self-doubt and the enormity of the writing task at hand.

Look for more about Bird by Bird in coming days...