Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne’s father—also a writer—in the iconic passage that gives the book its title:

“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 around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

Why I Picked It Up

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This year, I've deeply enjoyed author memoirs because, as any other writer will tell you: the process is different for everyone. This year, I've talked a lot about books being two-way, prisms, and ultimately relational, and so the penning of them is no different. You have insights you'll carry into one from the other but each relationship to a work is as fresh as the first—meaning you never quite know what you're doing.

The tone of Bird by Bird reminded me a lot of an email I got from a (now)-literary agent friend about thirteen years ago when we first connected as teenagers; I'd written on my blog about the tunnel vision of having a passion as a kid and knowing I'd land in publishing, and the call towards it resonated with him.

"There are a lot of people who say they are going to do things," he wrote, "and some people look past the cliché and really, really want it. You and I both want it and we're getting it."

And part of the reason Bird by Bird is so effective and inspirational for writers is that it taps into the hunger of the work and the writing itself as separate from the desire for publication. Still, it doesn't tell you to get over it either.

Often when NYT bestsellers cheekily tell you to do it for the love of it (now that they're on the other side of the angst, terror, existential confusion), it can ring empty for the exact reasons Anne Lamott describes: most of us would at least like the stability to do more of it.

Anne Lamott knows when to fess up to jealousy, money concerns, ambition, desperation, and so that balances out her practicality and her simple love for sitting down at her desk. Both modes can coexist, but she doesn't lose sight of the joy (or sometimes frustration) in words to paper. Her wisdom, therefore, reverberates throughout her thoughts on drafting, strategies of getting unstuck, writer lifestyles and philosophies, and more.

I read Bird by Bird a few years ago on one side of [redacted book process.] I reread it again the other afternoon and it felt like an entirely new read in light of my experience. So much of it rang true, and so much of the conflicts and agonies she discussed were ones I've just experienced over the last year.

So reading it as an emerging writer versus reading it as an author on the other side of [redacted book process] both give me glimmers of insight to squirrel away for a bad day. I'm sure I'll read it ten years from now reflecting on what comes next for me over the next two years or so and pull away with a new understanding or patina.

What I Loved

Bird by Bird is just a collection of various tidbits that all feel accurate. The title comes from Anne Lamott's brother sitting down to write an essay and her dad telling him just to go "bird by bird."

Since I'm sitting down to write a zero draft for the first time in years, it was worth revisiting as I'm nervous about how quickly and efficiently I will get words to paper from scratch—and, knowing myself, knowing it will feel bad because they will not be very quality ones. My books are built in revision, with flashes of genius that only come with lots of simmer time (thus far.)

But that's perfectionism being my enemy—and Anne Lamott has an entire chapter on that. Lately, especially in regards to basically having to "influencer bootcamp" myself—I'm trying to be better about execution over perfection and trusting that my bare minimum is still operating at a high standard.

I say this frequently, but—although I'm an optimist and romantic in details and aesthetic, people are often surprised by how staunchly practical and straightforward I am in nearly all domains of life. The work of writing is one of them, which is why I appreciate the style of Bird by Bird. It's encouraging but not flowery. Like me, it's romantic but not sentimental. In that way, it feels aligned with the groundedness of writers like Mary Oliver (my homegirl), with a dash of Fran Lebowitz for good measure.

I had the thought while rereading Bird by Bird that I have the most beautiful job of all time because my job is literally to be inspired, and that's what everyone really wants. Bird bvBird entirely captures that honor and dignity.

And it has plenty of useful lenses that I think plenty of writers can lose sight of (by no fault of their own.) Like my prime advice for "aspiring" authors: that you have to be a reader. I'm perpetually shocked by how many writers want to write without that key element.

Lamott talks about the illusion that finally getting published holds the key to everything without feeling condescending about the misconception. In other words, she gives helpful wisdom and perspective without her experience and success rendering the lens dismissive of the desperate reality of wanting.

“Sometimes I could not tell you exactly why, especially when it feels pointless and pitiful, like Sisyphus with cash-flow problems. Other days, my writing is like a person to me—the person who, after all these years, still makes sense to me.”

I loved that a lot of her suggestions mirrored what I love most about improving craft—both tangibly and in philosophy. Like that to get better at dialogue and characterization, you really have to listen to how people talk and what they're saying and how they might miss the mark or hide away certain things. One of my big goals over the last several years has been wanting to be a good listener, and I'm painfully aware of the situations and relationships in which I feel like I don't do a good enough job. As she points out, you have to will yourself into being receptive and noticing others before you can translate that openness into a story that doesn't feel flat. Writing is solitary, but creativity cannot be.

She talks about negative space and what doesn't make it to the page, which is also a huge element of the curation necessity of putting together a book. She talks about the weird tangents or exercises you can use to trick yourself into finding something useful, and how that is occasionally different from avoiding the work of discovery you have to do but don't want to. As she writes, your psychic muscles sometimes flinch away from the work that's actually meaningful because you don't want to confront the truths in it, but how you can also tell when someone's avoiding what's actually real.

“ You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.”

I love the organization of each of her chapters. She also has some truly hilarious anecdotes and lines that definitely capture the agony of the whole experience of drafting a book, like practically drinking herself to death after her editor told her that the draft she'd Frankensteined yet again just frankly didn't work. The cursing, the humor, the idealism, and the devastation of heading in a new direction, oscillating between necessary detachment and feeling like someone is literally slicing into you and perhaps removing your entire reason for being.

She also talks about the impossibility of feeling done, and how you're done when you simply run out of steam and it's the very best that you can do and you will never quite close that gap between the finished product and the genius you expected of yourself.

Similarly, she charts the ups and downs of ego and identity formation around the whole thing, marking the points at which she is more writer or person at specific times. She never loses sight of the beauty in it.

“You are going to love some of your characters, because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason...Now, a person's faults are what make them likable.”

The overall sense is deeply honest and descriptive, resonant if you've been through it and perhaps illuminating if you haven't. Bird by Bird is likely the closest memoir I've read to how the entire thing feels, both the love and the road blocks. And there are so many lines that won me over entirely. She also reminds me a lot of a writing professor I used to have whom I absolutely adored.

Lines I Loved

“That's what plot is: what people up and do in spite of everything that tells them they shouldn't.”

“You must learn about people from people, not what you read.”

“If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.”

“But my editor said 'I'm sorry.'...Luckily, I was still drinking at the time. I had a few hundred more drinks with them, and the merest bit of cocaine—actually, I began to resemble an anteater at one point.”

“I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? Let's think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world. The alternative is that we stultify, we shut down. Think of those times when you've read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment.”

I will never shut up about awe.

Overall Thoughts

I could keep going, but all in all, Bird by Bird is familiar in an "I feel seen" way for writers at any stage of the process, and also holds plenty of thoughtful grist for those who just want to move through existence with a little more receptivity towards being moved or creative. I'll reread it, time and time again, and get new value each time. It's profoundly readable and often funny, and maintains its practicality in a way that keeps the inspiration from ever veering corny.