Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Dec 18, 2007 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 272 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times). 

“Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.” —The New York Times Book Review

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.’”

From inside the book

Contents

Getting Started 3 Short Assignments
16
Shitty First Drafts 21 Perfectionism
28
School Lunches 33 Polaroids
39
Dialogue 64 Set Design
74
False Starts 80 Plot Treatment
85
Radio Station KFKD 116Jealousy
122
Index Cards 133 Calling Around
145
Letters 172 Writers Block
176
PUBLICATIONAND OTHER
185
Writing a Present 185 Finding Your Voice
195
Giving 202Publication
208
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2007)

ANNE LAMOTT is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Almost Everything; Hallelujah Anyway; Help, Thanks, Wow; Small Victories; Stitches; Some Assembly Required; Grace (Eventually); Plan B; Traveling Mercies; and Operating Instructions. She is also the author of seven novels, including Imperfect Birds and Rosie. A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California.

Bibliographic information