By Jonathan Kanary, Consultant
Review of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott is not an academic, nor is her book intended for an academic audience. She has taught a lot of writing workshops, but mostly she assumes that her readers are writing stories. So why should you, a busy grad student, consider reading her book—or at least a blog post about it? Four reasons:
- Lamott is a really good writer, and Bird by Bird is enjoyable to read. (Remember reading for pleasure?)
- She’s also really funny.
- She tells us that this book includes everything she knows about writing. It’s her writing workshop between paperback covers. Some of that wisdom is helpful for grad student types, as well. (And if you’re secretly writing a novel, or maybe a memoir or movie script, there’s a goldmine of good advice here for you.)
- Note the subtitle: she’s also offering instructions on life. Frequently her insights about writing spill over into wry and sometimes painful (but still funny) observations about what it’s like to be human, and how bad we are at it, and how we might come to grips with that reality and learn to accept the kind of person we actually are. Do I even need to say that this is also relevant for grad students?
However, since you’re busy and may not have time to read the whole book, this post will synthesize some highlights.
The most directly relevant material shows up in the first three chapters. Here Lamott offers three simple but extremely important suggestions.
First: find consistency. “‘But how?’ my students ask. ‘How do you actually do it?’ You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at the same time every day… you turn on your computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so.” Distractions come: interior voices, external interruptions, neck-pain. “Yet somehow in the face of all this, you clear a space for the writing voice… and you begin to compose sentences” (6-7). You write by showing up every day and putting some words together.
But you also break the work down into short assignments. “[A]ll I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame” (17), Lamott says. She keeps an actual one-inch frame on her desk as a reminder. For those of us overwhelmed by a seminar paper or a dissertation chapter, sometimes the answer is to break it down into very small pieces.
Third, write shitty first drafts. (My friend who uses this chapter in her freshman writing classes abbreviates to “SFDs.”) If you’re like me, you want to sit down and compose something beautiful—and publication-worthy—on the first try. But Lamott says real writing isn’t like this. The disastrous first draft is how we get to a better second draft, and maybe a third draft that’s actually good.
Part of her point is that “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it” (22). I almost always have to go back and revise my thesis statement after I draft a paper, because then I finally know what I’m arguing. But professional writers like Lamott do the same sort of thing: “Everyone I know flails around, kvetching and growing despondent, on the way to finding a plot and structure that work” (85). If you’re an academic, just swap in the word “argument” for “plot.” Of course you want to get it right the first time. But remember: “perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor” (28, 93).
Writing is hard, Lamott thinks, and so is being human, and sometimes those two hard things collide. She has plenty to say about real-life challenges: the distractions, the efforts that don’t work and get rewritten and still don’t work, the sense of inadequacy. There’s a whole chapter titled “Jealousy.” Grad students I know talk about impostor syndrome, the belief that somehow I’ve ended up here amongst all these smart people and someday they’ll realize I don’t belong and throw me out again. But we don’t talk as much about the flip side, jealousy: the feeling that so-and-so from your department is winning success after success, when his scholarship honestly isn’t as good as yours. Both forms of self-comparison can be deadly. Lamott thinks that sometimes you have to step away from those people, so you can actually do your own work.
But you need other people, too. Seeking feedback is risky, and potentially painful: Lamott says that any time someone gives her a lot of suggestions, her initial response is, “Well. I’m sorry, but I can’t be friends with you anymore” (166). But she believes that every writer needs someone who cares enough about her and her work to tell the truth about it, and offer honest help. She strongly recommends writing groups. Or you can ask a friend. Or—shameless plug—send a draft to the Graduate Writing Center.
The truth is, we all struggle with writing. Anne Lamott does too, and her honesty about the struggle may be the most helpful thing about her book. But Bird by Bird is also a constant reminder that we don’t have to struggle alone.