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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
Practical and inspiring. One I will surely revisit across different stages of life
I don’t know why this word kept coming up as I read this novel: it’s like a balm. Balm. I’ve never really used that word much. But it felt so true. I read this novel at night before bed; always got through about a chapter. And if made me feel like I’d just applied my night time lip moisturizer. I felt like all the writing I’ve ever done, all the writing I want to do, is safe as I read this book. It’s safe from my negative self-talk and the pressure I put on myself to write a lot and to the urgency I feel to try to publish. Here, reading this book, time slows down and I can remember the good that writing can do—has done—for me.
Writing, Lamott has taught me, is not performance. It’s a way to catch the ideas I have, which I want to catch, and hold onto them. One of my favorite metaphors that she shares is the unconscious as a little boy who creates things and “hands them up to you through the cellar door. He might as well be cutting out paper dolls. He’s peaceful; he’s just playing,” meanwhile, I’m “just the typist. A good typist listens” (68). What if I demystified the fuck out of my process to the point that all I do is listen and type? What if I loved hard on that little boy in the basement, who’s just hanging out, who every once in a while throws something weird and funny and shockingly wise, in my direction?
I just want to read this book again for the first time. I feel like, now that I’ve read Bird by Bird, everything else I’m going to read for the rest of my life will be a little less gentle; a little less exactly what I need to read.
Writing, Lamott has taught me, is not performance. It’s a way to catch the ideas I have, which I want to catch, and hold onto them. One of my favorite metaphors that she shares is the unconscious as a little boy who creates things and “hands them up to you through the cellar door. He might as well be cutting out paper dolls. He’s peaceful; he’s just playing,” meanwhile, I’m “just the typist. A good typist listens” (68). What if I demystified the fuck out of my process to the point that all I do is listen and type? What if I loved hard on that little boy in the basement, who’s just hanging out, who every once in a while throws something weird and funny and shockingly wise, in my direction?
I just want to read this book again for the first time. I feel like, now that I’ve read Bird by Bird, everything else I’m going to read for the rest of my life will be a little less gentle; a little less exactly what I need to read.
funny
inspiring
reflective
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
This was absolutely fabulous! It made me smile several times, laugh a few times, and even got me teared up once or twice.
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
I think if she published just the final part of this book (The Last Class) as an essay, it would've been enough.
no.
i went on a 3 page rant about this for school. im sure you don;t want to hear about it.
this is good if you feel burdened as a writer to write.
this is not if you want someone to cheer you on.
i went on a 3 page rant about this for school. im sure you don;t want to hear about it.
this is good if you feel burdened as a writer to write.
this is not if you want someone to cheer you on.
Some decent insights into writing and the writing life, but packaged in such a way that I’d never assign or recommend this book. It’s very much a product of the time in which was published: sarcasm in the form of a lot of casual jokes about suicide, paired with what reads as a soft contempt for students.
Smart, but dated.
Smart, but dated.