“Review” of Anne lamott’s Bird by Bird
On the Camino Francés, in Viana, Spain, and happy as a clam to be living in the moment. (Photo copyright and credit: Adam C Groves / Ultreya Editorial)
What can I say about Bird by Bird that has not already been said by every writing professor ever and thousands of reviewers? “Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott” is basically all a review needs to say at this point. It is axiomatic that if you are English-speaking and you aspire to write, you will at some point read this book, or at least have it recommended to you. If you have not, let us know what desert island you are marooned on, and we will send rescue.
So instead of rehashing facts most people already know—that Lamott is funny (albeit a bit too much so for my taste), and Lamott is brutally honest in a beautiful and redeeming way, and Lamott is both deeply wise about writing and very talented at teaching it, and, because it bears repeating, that anyone who aspires to write should read this book—
instead of all that, I’ll talk about how this wonderful book has intersected with and impacted my life.
I first read Bird by Bird in college. I believe it was assigned reading for my freshman writing class. That was not by any means when I first discovered the pleasure of writing; that had happened in first grade, if not earlier.
But that college class was when it first dawned on me—dramatically, almost violently, like sunrise on the moon—that writing had the epiphanic power to illuminate me.
I think Lamott’s book helped usher me into this stunned, twofold awareness: that writing contained so much more untapped energy than I had realized, and that a lonely, silenced, misunderstood boy who had spent so much time desperately trying to please others that he barely knew himself could draw new life from that great well of light, find breath in the vacuum, and finally begin to say what he wanted to say … to discover, even, what was in him to be said.
Prior to that, writing had always been just one more tool I made dutiful use of to demonstrate to my superiors what a good amplifier I could be for their ideas. So I could be accepted. So I could go to bed at night and sleep without nightmares, believing I was okay as a living creature.
Which is not to say I got over the desire to be patted on the head in my college writing class. I craved my professor’s feedback on my stories. I relished workshops when my story—mine!—was the focus of discussion. I was crushed by the merest hint of disapproval or disinterest. I was heartbroken the one time I offered up one of my precious creations to the school arts journal and later learned (entirely by accident) that it had literally been forgotten, and only at the last minute granted a rush review and rejection. And I certainly continued to have nightmares, and insomnia, and crushing self-esteem problems, and any number of psychological and social dysfunctions.
No, the problems I came to college with persisted. I had not experienced the neglect or scorn of a peer—or professor—for the last time, and all of the inner demons I wrestle with continue to harass me today. Chief among these challenges, as far as Bird by Bird is concerned, is the tenacious, troubled relationship in my soul between the necessity of expression and the unreliability of response. With regard to the latter, I refer both to its unreliability in terms of whether it arrives (and the quality thereof) and also to its unreliability as an ingredient in personal worth.
So it is timely and perhaps providential that I decided to revisit Lamott’s seminal book on writing at this stage in my life, as part of my ongoing project to read and review works on writing for the benefit of clients, editors, and readers and writers in general.
Indeed, I feel grateful today to say that I have several years under my belt of living a mission to encourage and empower aspiring writers through my editing business. My business may be on life support, but I believe in what I am doing, and my clients say they are empowered by my help, so I persist in this pilgrimage.
On the flip side, I am also celebrating 25 years of being a self-abandoning, would-be creative who continues to sacrifice my own artistic ambitions on altars of doubt, self-loathing, and the suspicion that no one cares or approves.
Therefore, when Lamott says in her book’s introduction (at least in the 1994 version):
“I understood immediately the thrill of seeing oneself in print. It provides some sort of primal verification: you are in print; therefore you exist.” p. xiv
And then goes on to say:
“I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people … 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.” P. xxvi
I feel every contradictory bit of every one of these words in every fibromyalgic sinew of my being…not just for myself, but for every writer I aspire to help.
I know the unbelievable power of expression. I have felt it. The visceral potency of words is hard to describe if you have not experienced it for yourself; if you have not luxuriated in a bath of well-smithed words, be they prose, poetry, song lyrics, skilled oratory, whatever.
And when one writes…oh, the mystery and wonder! I still remember the first time my mother handed me a spiral-bound notebook when I was a troubled, stifled adolescent, and her revelatory words of explanation: “This is for you to write whatever you think and feel in. No one else will look at it. It’s just for you.” I have felt the catharsis of speaking my thoughts into graphite and ink on the page; of almost literally talking to myself and experiencing the comfort of feeling heard even when no one was listening. And over the years I have experienced many of the other perplexing powers that the act of writing has: to stimulate parts of the brain, to help organize thoughts, to release emotions, and so on.
On the darker side, I have been intoxicated by the sight of my words in print … even if only on social media. Likes and comments get me high as a kite. And I know how destructively addictive it is to write toward the reward. Most obviously, the payoff is rarely forthcoming. More importantly, such an orientation produces all sorts of betrayals: of truthfulness, of integrity, of dignity.
But do you begin to see the tension? Doesn’t writing (speaking) imply reading (listening)? Don’t they need one another? What does it mean to write if that does not at some point involve sharing that writing; if no one picks up and reads; if the words do not transform into an inhabitable space in which two or more people sit together, bringing the words to life through conversation and letting the words bring the people more to life as bonds deepen through the mystery of communication?
“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.” p. 7
As individuals and as a society, we don’t seem to ever quite know what to do with the fact that we are both individuals and members of societies. Nor do we ever seem quite at peace with our antagonistic needs for autonomy and belonging. These parts of us all insist upon themselves. They never settle on a shared set of goals or rules. There is always angling for supremacy. The much-desired moment of kissing and making up never quite manages to happen.
And society is no better than the individual at breaking this impasse. We agree to aim for maximum individualism … but that doesn’t work out, so we shift gears and prioritize the community … but that creates its own problems. Back and forth we go.
The simple truth is that being a human being is work. Unfortunately, most of our efforts to resolve—or, more accurately, to reduce and eliminate—the dualities of our existence are the philosophical equivalent of diet pills and Cosmo sex secrets and one-party government. The details vary, but most of us at some point and in some way wish there were one simple action or idea that would fix everything.
But a question worth considering, and which Bird by Bird demonstrates and draws attention to in numerous ways, is why on earth we apply so much energy to trying to reduce the complexity of our existence. Why do we try to solve ourselves?
It is as if she is saying, “We are here, and this is what it is, and there is joy and grace in the journey, so why don’t we just get to it?”
Lamott says:
“I tell [aspiring writers] they’ll want to be really good right off, and the may not be, but they might be good someday if they just keep the faith and keep practicing. And they may even go from wanting to have written something to just wanting to be writing…because writing brings with it so much joy, so much challenge. It is work and play together.” P. xxix
Notice that above the quote I did not say “get on with it.” That would have given the flavor of enduring, of holding one’s nose to get beyond it, but “get to it.” The assertion that writing is hard work is not meant to be discouraging, but instead a statement of reality which operates as a challenge and invitation: to begin to discover the deeper satisfaction to be found in a non-results-based way of approaching the craft.
I like to think this captures Lamott’s conviction that the human condition (which includes the writer’s condition)—that is to say, our desires, the uncertainty of finding particular forms of satisfaction, learning how to properly situate what we want and who we are apart from the changing and uncontrollable conditions of life, and the long, long walk we are able to make through it all—that this condition of being, if we allow our perspectives to evolve and we remain both diligent and playful, comes to be experienced for the blessing that it is. Writing, just like life, transforms from being the way to what we want to being what we want. Each word and each moment contains gifts, and each one is a gift, just as we are gifts exactly as we are.
In my business, my writing, my other creative endeavors, and every area of my life, I engage in regular battle with myself over what matters most to me and why I am doing any of it. My fundamental concerns, when I strip away the artifice, are as follows: “Am I secure? Am I worthy? Am I loved?” Thanks to some recent encounters with a Higher Power that has repeatedly reassured me of their love for me, I am now able to see that the answer always is (and always was) “Yes.”
I am also more able to see that I cannot add to my security and value, nor do anything to diminish it. This does not always arrest my stress and striving, but it helps me keep it in check, calm down, and put my ambitions—which all too often arise directly from stress and insecurity—into their proper place.
Again I return to the contradictions, because this does not mean I want to live a life without dreams and motion. Of course I want to improve and achieve. Of course I want my life to be a story, at least as much as I want to tell stories!
Let’s just say that rereading Bird by Bird has helped to remind me that life and writing are both types of playful seriousness.
I feel it is worthwhile to work, to correct, to improve, to strive to do things well…but with a certain lightness to it all; because it is also supremely valuable—the most important thing of all for me—to remember that nothing I do, nothing I achieve fundamentally impacts my worth and security as a human being in the hands of a loving Higher Power.
I’ll give Lamott the final word in a moment, but first I’ll share one last thought. It’s an idea I’ve heard in various ways from various sources. I’ll put it like this: “It’s not about becoming anything. It’s about discovering and embracing what was already there.” Or as Lamott says: