Book Report #79 - Bird by Bird

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

This was refreshing in that it was not pretentious in the slightest. Quite the opposite. Lamott puts her whole writing career out there--the good, the bad and the ugly--so we can learn from it. I loved her quotation about critics. These are the people that show up once the battle is over and kick the wounded.

Bird by Bird made me laugh out loud. As I read I shared I stopped to share selections with whoever was in the room. Lamott does not stutter when she states that writing has to be done for the sake of a personal journey, NOT for the sake of publication. Because if you weren't enough before the party, you're certainly not going to be enough after. But what a joy it is to write! To try, to stretch your limits and to reach that incredible moment where it becomes bigger than you.

General consensus: If you're a writer, you must read it.

Book Report #77 - On Writing

On Writing by Stephen King

At the Santa Barbara Writers Conference I was told I had to read this. It wasn't given an option. Since there's nothing I like more than being told exactly what to do I bought it and read it.

The first section, C.V., now salsa-spattered so you know I read it with gusto, was not fair. King has the charisma of ten people. The story of his childhood was as joyous as Bill Bryson's in The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. His honesty about his alcoholism was stunning and his ride to publication thrilling.

Then it kind of fell off for me. I appreciate that he went through the mechanics of writing as thoroughly as he did but I just have this thing where I don't like talking about the process of writing. I'd rather just write. Actually, King feels the same way. He was just trying to impart some knowledge to beginning writers who were asking for it.

The last section covered his brush with death when he was run over by a bus. What a bitch that was. It was a nice, albeit horrifying, peek into this larger-than-life writer's life.

General consensus: You have to read it for the first chapter. Then use what you can of the rest.