Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Why I Always Migrate Back to Bird by Bird.

Just as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, I return to a perennial nesting place, a book Anne Lamott wrote about writing called Bird by Bird.

Whenever I see birds thriving in difficult and unlikely locations, among craggy cliffs, atop flagpoles or in lonesome pines along wind swept bluffs, I think about writers. Like our fine-feathered friends, some of us are irrepressible songbirds who somehow manage to thrive under harsh and unforgiving conditions.

An article about Laura Hilldebrand in last week's New York Times magazine describes the health hardships that the author endured while writing her best-sellers Seabiscuit and Unbroken. But isn't that the point? She has endured. Could it have been the challenges that helped her rise to the occasion and produce works of steely purpose and unbroken spirit? That is the question posed by the article's author Wil S. Hylton.

Saying it's difficult to be a writer is true but it's also trite. However, if becoming a writer is your goal and if you are looking for a fine book about how to write and lead the writing life, you can't land on a better one than Bird by Bird.

No writer should go without reading this work at least once.

Here are six reasons why:

1. Anne Lamott writes from of a wealth of experience derived from many years of teaching writing. She doesn't lecture. She tells stories. She knows what we, her readers, want to know and what our monkey-mind is prattling on about as we read her book. For example, at one point she takes time out from a discussion of writing craft to indicate that right now we, the readers, want to ask, ''But do you need an agent to get published?'' She's right, of course. That is what most readers want to know right off the bat. And we don't want a discussion about craft to get in the way of knowing. The beauty of Anne Lamott's writing: She is willing to skip around, which, to my way of thinking is a great way to cover the subject of writing.

2. She can be comic and downright hilarious. For example, she starts by stating, ''…good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do no seem to share this longing.'' Thus, she introduces us to her delightfully zany, readable and lively style. But then a few sentences later, she gives up on the truth by writing, ''But after a few days at the desk, telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat.''

The question she asks, without asking, is this: Who would ever want to read a book about writing written in a ponderous style? ''No one'' is our answer.

3. She encourages us to write about the bad stuff, the really bad stuff, in our lives. If you have had horrific experiences, she insists (rightly) that ''you own them.'' She encourages all of us to rise to the challenge of writing about the bad stuff and not avoid it in favor of writing about light and airy stuff. I know from experience, if you try to avoid writing about it, the bad stuff will only show up in your writing in other weird ways. Far better to confront it head on.

4. She has a wonderful way of letting us access the fun of writing. For example, her metaphors: In a section on ''Polaroids,'' she tells us ''You're not going to know how your shitty first draft turns out until it does. She gives us permission to write shitty first drafts by calling them exactly that. She calls the process of writing similar to ''School Lunches'' by writing, ''It only looked like a bunch of kids eating lunch. It was really about opening our insides in front of everyone.'' She is able to raise her work to being instructions on life itself. That makes it very valuable.

5. She has a wonderful way of letting us access the terror of writing. She makes it clear that if you wish to be a writer, you must find a way of face up to your demons. ''Then your mental illnesses arrived at the desk like your sickest, most secretive relatives. And they pull up chairs in a semicircle around the computer; and they try to be quiet but you know they are there with their weird coppery breath, leering at you behind your back.'' By describing what we are afraid of and making it real, she enables us to laugh at the terror. She gives us strategies to deal with it, how to not yield to it. This alone makes Bird by Bird a very valuable writing companion. We come to writing well armed with Anne Lamott's humor.

6. She is a marvelous teacher of writing. She helps us focus on what is attainable, on what we can write about successfully today, right now, this very second. One of the more memorable and truthful things she writes has to do with publication. In her words: ''Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy…''

By being a marvelous writer herself, she models how an excellent teacher of writing can and should proceed.

Yes, writing can be hard. Writing can be difficult. Yes, it takes courage to keep the demons at bay knowing you may never be able to destroy them. But there are compensatory givebacks and remunerative grace notes to being a writer, as well. The call of Bird by Bird that keeps me coming back for more is simple: It puts me in touch, lovingly in touch, with the beauty that living a writer's life makes possible.