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Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
Anne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
So much of writing is about sitting down and doing it every day, and so much of it is about getting into the custom of taking in everything that comes along, seeing it all as grist for the mill. This can be a very comforting habit, like biting your nails. Instead of being scared all the time, you detach, watch what goes on, and consider it creative
... See moreAnne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
It will tell you what to do.
Anne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? Vonnegut said, ‘When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth’. So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use up lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertent
... See moreall I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft of, say, the opening paragraph. And no one was going to see it.