Final Thoughts on Bird By Bird

After reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott I took one main lesson from the story. In all the personal anecdotes and tips on writing, the one thing that really stuck out to me was the numerous times Lamott encouraged the writer to not hold back anything while he or she writes. If I get stuck writing, Lamott encourages me to simply write whatever comes to mind, no matter how irrelevant it seems. She states that there is a good chance I may end up writing one of two great sentences that can be used in the story.

This strategy really applied to me because I constantly find myself stuck doing nothing for long periods of time. My problem is that sometimes I write as a perfectionist, and this is exactly what she suggests not to do. Her advice has really proved to me that this is an ineffective way of writing. She states that being afraid to put down what's on your mind is a bad thing. If you are afraid to put down what's going through your head because you are embarrassed by it, then you are going to miss some of your best content, and you will end up with an embarrassing essay. In Bird by Bird, it's clearly evident that she holds nothing back in her writing. She admits all the mistakes and embarrassments she's went through over the years and it translates to a very interesting read for the audience. I enjoyed how at several points in Bird by Bird, Lamott would throw in random sentences that seemed a little off topic, but then she explained that she had been storing these sentences, which she thought were good, for years. And now she finally had a chance to get them published through Bird by Bird. If rambling on can possibly be a good thing, then Lamott has made a good use of it in Bird by Bird. Through some of her rambling she actually will add good points to her discussion. Lamott also goes into detail about trying to remember certain situations in order to possibly use them in a story later on. She does this through notecards. She advises that anything that could possibly be turned into writing should be accounted for. This goes back to writing everything you can think of that may be useful in your story. Also, by using an informal tone she is able to get across more thoughts and opinions. I have considered writing slightly informal because of the way she makes it work so well, being able to add her own thoughts.

In my personal memoir, I took this approach when writing my first rough draft. I wrote anything that I thought could enhance the essay, and later went back and took out parts that weren't concise enough to fit in the page length restriction. By taking Lamott's strategy I ended up coming up with additional good content. I plan on taking this piece of advice from Lamott and using it in the rest of my writing during my college career.