Final Review: Bird by Bird

After much delay I finished reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The full title of the book is actually Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life and, true to the title, in the final chapters of the book Lamott discusses both writing and how to cope with life.

This partial list of chapter titles and quotes from those chapters provide some glimpses into Lamott's wisdom on the subject of writing:

Looking Around - " Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding meaning therein."

Jealousy - "Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you've been able to muster.  But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry un-deserving writers you know..."

Calling Around - "There are an enormous number of people out there with invaluable information to share with you, and all you have to do is pick up the phone."

Writing Groups - "...an occupational hazard of writing is that you'll have bad days. You feel not totally alone but also that everyone else is at a party. But if you talk to other people who write, you remember that this feeling is part of the process, that it's inevitable."

But for all the great writing advice Lamott has to offer, in the end  it was her thoughts on life that had the most impact on me. I leave you with one passage I found particularly profound:

"I remind myself nearly every day of something a doctor told me six months before my friend Pammy died. This was a doctor who always game me straight answers. When I called on this one particular night, I was hoping she could put a positive slant on some distressing developments. She couldn't, but she said something that changed by life. "Watch her carefully right now," she said, " because she's teaching you how to live." 

I remind myself of this when I cannot get any work done: to live as if I am dying, because the truth is we are all terminal on the bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence."