Writing teaches you to take yourself seriously and to take life seriously. It’s like that great Henry James line - a writer is someone on whom nothing is lost. It teaches us to pay attention, to savor the moment. You’ll get so much more out of writing than just a manuscript. Whether it’s a memoir, a confessional, a screenplay, whatever, just start writing this book.” 7. “I always told my writing students to write what they’d love to come upon, because then it puts it into existence. Imagine the book you dream of finding, and then bring it to life.
This is a negative, judgmental person.’ And then I think, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, because you saved me from giving it to an agent or editor before it’s been polished to the very best surface that it can present.’” 6. But I think your first two pages are throat clearing, and I didn’t know why you summoned me to sit by the campfire to listen to your story until I got to the very bottom of page three.’ I hate criticism, and I always think, ‘Well, this is a bad person, and I don’t really want to be friends anymore. One of my people often says, ‘I’m going to love this. “Everybody needs two people who respect them and love their work and will give you the gifts of honesty and help. It hurts to take that stuff out but you do.” 5. As one great writer said, ‘You must kill your little darlings.’ It means you have to take out your favorite lines and your favorite descriptions that you think make you look much more educated than you really are. You’ll have to take out stuff that you’ve spent so much time on, that you love more than life itself. Your first draft of a novel might be 450 pages, but it can’t be - it really wants to be 310 pages. “A terrible first draft is the secret of life. Your first draft will stink - and that’s OK. I have a lot of erasers, and I also hit the delete button a lot.” 4. It just means you need to take it out and try again. “If you write something and it doesn’t work, it does not mean you are a morally inferior person. There’s no shame in hitting the “delete” button. If I need to get someplace, I put a little note to myself: ‘I need to get here.’ It’s kind of like stringing beads on a necklace.” 3. As I draw them and fill them in, I’ll think, ‘Oh, I really want to cover this’ or ‘This scene is something that is so important.’ I’ll put those somewhere on the graph paper - there’s lots of blank space around the lily pads. Then I’ll begin filling out a few of the lily pads that I’m going to land on. I put what I know into that lily pad, like who the characters are, what this is going to be about, and when and where this is happening. I buy poster-sized sheets of graph paper, and I’ll start at one end and draw a big circle. “I picture a novel or a work of nonfiction as a lily pond. Think of your writing as a pond - now go play in it. I’ll say, ‘You don’t have to write a whole book on birds just pick one bird.’ We have a lot of pelicans where I live, so I’ll say, ‘Read about pelicans, and then write me two sentences about pelicans in your own voice.’” 2.
I teach a second-grade workshop with my grandson right now, and I tell them about keeping a one-inch picture frame on their desks - all you have to do on any given day is what you can see through that one-inch picture frame.
“A blank piece of paper is like an unassaulted ice floe - whether you’re a well-known writer or a beginner, it’s overwhelming. In June, she participated in a Facebook Live conversation at TED’s NYC headquarters, and we’ve distilled her essential advice. After all, she is the author of Bird by Bird, one of the top-five best writing books ever.
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When it comes to working, says essayist and novelist Anne Lamott (TED Talk: Truths learned from life and writing), “every writer I know sits down and goes, ‘Oh, I’m doomed, the well has run dry, I’m beating a dead horse, it’s awful, my tooth hurts, I think I need a root canal … and plus I have cancer in my leg.’”įortunately, for all of us ill-fated, dried-up, tooth-hurting scribblers, Lamott has decades of practice goading herself - as well as scores of students - into action. Here are thirteen pieces of advice to help you sit down and do it, shared by essayist and novelist Anne Lamott. Stocksy So many of us say we’ll start writing “as soon as” - as soon as we feel like it, as soon as we retire, as soon as we win the lottery.
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