It’s sort of a dream of mine to one day write my own book. I’ve always loved coming up with stories and using my imagination to create new worlds. But actually writing those ideas out on paper was more difficult than I had hoped. So at this point I have a few fragments of stories and ideas lying around, but I never really finished anything. Probably also because I would set the bar too high and on the other hand because I got disappointed that what I would write down didn’t seem as amazing as I had in mind.
In 2015 I found out about NaNoWriMo, which is basically a platform for people who love to write. Each year in November there’s a challenge to write a novel of 50 000 words in 30 days and you can join people from around the world who take part in this challenge. In my first year that I signed up for NaNoWriMo I joined this challenge, even though it was already the 11th of November at that time, and I failed miserably. But that didn’t stop me from taking part again in the challenge the next year. But there’s also a Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July where you can chose your own writing goal, which suits me a bit better and could also be a good way to prepare yourself for larger writing goals.
NaNoWriMo is a great platform because you can join others who have the same passion about writing and you also get a lot of tips from people who are already more experienced. But besides that I’ve also been looking for more writing resources and that’s how I came across the book ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott.
PART ONE: Writing
The first and biggest part of the book talks about the writing itself. It was the part I found the most interesting and I initially also bought the book for tips on writing (and not so much for the truth about how publishing your book might never happen, which I already pretty much knew). It is not a book about the theoretical aspects and rules of writing, but Lamott tries to talk about her experience with writing and the tips and tricks she has learned throughout the years. In a way it is also a bit of a biographical book and it does get quite personal at times. I did like that it’s been told from personal experience but after a while I got a bit annoyed by all the personal stories (but that’s just my personal opinion).
The thing I remembered the most about the first part of the book is that it is okay to write shitty first drafts. The first draft is just for writing everything down without worrying too much about the writing itself. Afterwards you can edit as much as you want and even make a second draft, a third draft,….
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” - Anne Lamott
The first part also talks about things like characters and dialogue. You can base characters upon people you know or some stranger you saw at the bus station that fascinated you. The important thing about characters is that they have their flaws, your character can’t be perfect because that wouldn’t feel realistic and just make them shallow.
A good tip for when you are writing dialogue is to read it out loud. And a great way to make your dialogue sound realistic is to observe people and their conversations in the real world.
Lamott also put in a quote from E.L. Doctorow which I really like: “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.”.
PART TWO: The Writing Frame of Mind
Lamott talks about the goal of a writer to help people give a sense of wonder, of seeing things anew just as a child looks at the world and is in awe by everything. This reminds me of my art lessons where they also said something along those lines. That you should try to draw and create things with the same sense of wonder as a child has, because then the really interesting and fascinating things come to be.
“Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on.” - Anne Lamott
When you write, in a way, you present your own viewpoint, the way you might see things and pick out the things that fascinate you the most. You’ll probably write about things that interest you the most because those are the things you are most passionate about and those are the subjects you yourself would love to read about.
PART THREE: Help Along the Way
The third part talks about the things around you that might be helpful for your writing journey. One of the most important things is to just look around you and let everything you see inspire you. Cities or villages you visited can be an inspiration for how your world in your story is going to look like. You can get your character inspiration from real people you’ve met and studying people's behaviour can also be beneficial for making your story more realistic.
Lamott gives the tip to write these kind of things down on index cards or whatever you like to use. These can be small things that fascinated you or ideas that just popped up in your head all of a sudden.
You can also join writing programs or classes but Lamott warns that they can be competitive and you could get some harsh critique that might actually demotivate you. So another way to get feedback or encouragement from other writers is to start your own writing group. I myself don’t know many people who like to write (actually only my sister) so I’m pretty sure I won’t be starting my own writing group any time soon, but for some people it might be helpful.
In this part of the book I also found a quote from Anne Lamott that made me stop reading for a while: “I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good enough at it.”. The time you spend one worrying how bad your writing is, you could spend on writing more shitty first drafts. It’s a great philosophy, but honestly hard to pull off for a lot of people, I think. I constantly worry and overthink things even though I know I shouldn’t, but that might just be the curse of having a human brain. So maybe we should just try to live with that instead of always having to try to get the best out of every moment in our life. I consider myself an expert at wasting time and I honestly think it’s okay to do nothing from time to time. But eventually it is important to make a commitment to writing even though it might be hard at first.
“In the beginning, when you’re first starting out, there are a million reasons not to write, to give up.“ - Anne Lamott
In the beginning you might constantly think that everything you are writing is bad and that should be something to stop thinking about (even though it is hard). I myself have trouble with commitment since I also just love to think up new stories instead of actually writing them. I haven't found a magic cure for this problem yet and I'm not sure there is one. Just take it day by day. You're probably always going to have bad days (maybe sometimes even many bad days in a row), but don't beat yourself up about it. You can't be productive every day.
PART FOUR: Publication and Other Reasons to Write
Part four talks about publication and how that probably shouldn’t be your goal. I never really had hopes that I would publish something someday, but just finishing something would be nice. So you can always write for other people which might give you a nice feeling, because those people will say how lovely your story is even though it might not be so lovely. And doing something for someone else instead of yourself might also give you the feeling that you’re a good person even though it is secretly also a bit (unknowingly) selfish (I’m certainly also guilty for doing this. I love giving people gifts and maybe that’s just because it gives me a good feeling).
You can also be a writer to “expose the unexposed” as Lamott describes it. Or you can “turn the unspeakable into words.”, which sounds very intriguing. I guess I always had the romantic idea of writing about everything I didn’t want to talk about, because I’ve always been a really quiet person. Unfortunately I constantly lose my motivation and I’m not sure where it’s always hiding at. And of course there is always the self-critique (which I’m sure many people have) that won’t go away even though I know I shouldn’t listen to it and this book also talks about how you should not listen to it, but easier said than done.
Eventually I do mostly just write for myself (which might be selfish, but sometimes it is necessary to be a bit selfish). I enjoy the days that I have a lot of inspiration and the days when the words just seem to come out like a waterfall. But I also have to take those bad days with me, otherwise there wouldn't be any good days.
And a little quote to end with, which I really liked (although I didn’t like the term “ordinary people”, as if people who aren’t artists are just ordinary. I’m not sure ordinary people really exist.): “This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in out hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away.”
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