Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and LifeNEW 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
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Page xiv
... feeling stuck inside your muddled but stroboscopic mind , peering out like a little undersea animal— a spiny blenny , for instance - from inside your tiny cave ? Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept : you can get so much ...
... feeling stuck inside your muddled but stroboscopic mind , peering out like a little undersea animal— a spiny blenny , for instance - from inside your tiny cave ? Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept : you can get so much ...
Page xvii
... , I went through it late at night , looking for more sexy parts , of which there were a number . It was very confusing . It made me feel very scared and sad . Then a strange thing happened . My father wrote an xvii Introd iction.
... , I went through it late at night , looking for more sexy parts , of which there were a number . It was very confusing . It made me feel very scared and sad . Then a strange thing happened . My father wrote an xvii Introd iction.
Page xx
... feeling for the first time in my life that there was hope , hope that I might find my place in a community . I felt that in my strange new friends and in certain new books , I was meeting my other half . Some people wanted to get XX ...
... feeling for the first time in my life that there was hope , hope that I might find my place in a community . I felt that in my strange new friends and in certain new books , I was meeting my other half . Some people wanted to get XX ...
Page xxii
... feel ringed with dark circles , like Lurch . I finally figured out that most of this paperwork could be tossed without there being any real ... well ... fallout , and this freed me up to write short stories instead . " Do it every day ...
... feel ringed with dark circles , like Lurch . I finally figured out that most of this paperwork could be tossed without there being any real ... well ... fallout , and this freed me up to write short stories instead . " Do it every day ...
Page xxvi
... feels at all compelled to write to do so . I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be . But writing is . Writing has so much to give , so much to teach , so many surprises ...
... feels at all compelled to write to do so . I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be . But writing is . Writing has so much to give , so much to teach , so many surprises ...
Contents
16 | |
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 |
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actually agent Anne Lamott Anthony Hopkins beautiful begin believe breathe called characters Demi Moore desk dialogue editor Ethan Canin everything father feel felt finally Flannery O'Connor formula fiction Frederick Buechner funny garden Gary Snyder getting give going happen head hear heart hope index cards inside keep KFKD knew listen lives look lunch mind months morning movie Natalie Goldberg night novel Okay one-inch picture frame Pammy paper parents person Phillip Lopate plot Polaroid probably published quiet remember sense Sharon Olds shitty first draft short assignment smell someone Sometimes sort stare started talk tell there's things thought tiny told truth trying turn voice waiting walking Warren Oates Wendell Berry woman wonderful words worry writer friends writing group written wrote