The Writing Life

I like to consider myself a writer. On the good days, that means I write, but mostly I fiddle around and tinker. I had hoped that Writing Life would be the silver bullet, all of a sudden I’d understand how to write, and the heavens would be opened and I’d sign six-figure book deals (this didn’t happen). Annie Dillard did a phenomenal job with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and she’s one of my favorite writers, so I figured I could do little better for a book on writing.But rather than being a handbook on how to write, The Writing Life is a collection of stories accumulated during the writing of several books. Annie Dillard does not explain how to write books — she explains how to live a life in which you write, all day every day, and try to create with words on a page. There are few techniques here; rather, the book is filled with stories of how it feels to be stuck in a spot in the book (been there) and why the end product is never quite what we’d imagined starting out (felt that).Mostly, The Writing Life tells you what to expect if you’re going to write books. It teaches you how to see stories with your eyes so that you can transfer them to your medium: the printed page. For me, it stirred a few deep thoughts, reminding me that I really couldn’t give up writing — and that’s what the writing life is. Closing the back page left me wanting to run and work on my writing from years ago. If you’re a writer — or wondering if you ought to keep trying to be a writer — The Writing Life will tell you.Like any other of her books, Annie Dillard fills this one with many ridiculous stories and illustrations that capture her point. Her books are like a million sparks that fly up from a burning log: filled with many individual, unique stories. And here’s where the similarities to Pilgrim begin. Much like that book, the stories in The Writing Life made me want to follow in Dillard’s footsteps. This, I’d guess, is exactly why the book was written.I’d recommend The Writing Life if you are looking at being a writer, are a writer, may someday be a writer, are married to a writer — if you’re at all connected to writing, you’ll enjoy the stories and message of this book. And if you’re not sure if you’re cut out to be a writer, give this a read: it’s only 120 pages. Maybe, like me, you’ll find out that you can’t not write.

I didn't have any expectations foe this book. I wasn't even sure what it was about. I'm stick not sure, but the writing is beautiful and some of the stories are fantastic. There's even a few Nuggets I'd wisdom for would be authors.

Dillard, in lovely metaphorical language, describes the contradictions in writing: a bold path fearfully followed. She touches the process of discovery—not knowing what you’ve found or its worth until you’ve gone there. She speaks of the courage to jettison what seemed the best part, or what was originally the point, as the writing progresses and we discover where it needs to go and what were really false starts. She urges us, when we get truly stuck, to search for a fatal flaw, and if we find it, to start again. Writing a book, Dillard tells us, takes a long time—usually between two and ten years. Exceptions are just that. How we feel about what we are writing—whether enthused or disgusted, matters not at all: keep writing.Appealing workplaces are to be avoided—imagination should meet memory in the dark. Writing usually comes slowly and with struggle.Writing is “unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then—and only then—it is handed to you.” This seems to capture so well the intersection between the labor of writing and the gift of something wonderful that takes us by surprise.Dillard talks of following where a work leads; of discovering where it is going. She also suggests that art is sometimes like rowing against the tide. You keep at it and it doesn’t always seem to be getting you anywhere, but still you keep at it, trusting that it will.This was lovely to read—full of striking metaphor and sharp images, and there were good bits throughout.

This autobiography is part advice, part memoir.I found Dillard’s advice to authors about habits (e.g., where to write) and approaches to writing (explore the story) to be encouraging. She really emphasizes the big picture and the long vision. She speaks of years, not of mere months. To be clear, The Writing Life is not a how-to book, not a craft book.If you are a genre writer, I don’t think you would like this book. Dillard’s meandering prose, her long, introspective paragraphs, and her tangential musings about chopping wood, playing softball, and riding in a stunt plane are anything but the fast pace and tight prose genre authors strive for.Dillard explains that writing is dizzying and time consuming, and the writer often rows against the tide or crashes into the earth, but it’s how the word-artist experiences the purity of the art form. Writing may hurt.Overall, The Writing Life is a thought-provoking, encouraging book, and I gave it five stars. It’s aimed at a narrow audience, though, so not all writers/readers will enjoy Dillard’s autobiography.

I highlighted my way through this book, flagging sentences to reread when I needed a nudge—sometimes gentle, sometimes a kick in the pants—to sit down and get back to writing. That says it all. A blessed book for a writer, painter, or person to read.

A good read to improve your writing skills

El libro llegó perfecto y bueno te tiene que gustar sobre lo que trata y estar interesado en el tema. A mi me ha gustado mucho.

I have read this three times. Still continues to move me. Very Raw, very honest and contains some hard truths.

This book is a must-read for anyone who's a writer or who wants to be a writer. It's brutally honest about what creative writing is like, what it involves, the compulsive necessity and the insurmountable difficulty of it you can't ever triumph over or get away from. I found so much truth in this book. And yes, it does make you ask yourself - as Annie does - why you ever even try to write in the first place. And, like Annie, you don't come up with any answer beyond a knowing kind of shrug. This book makes more visible than many the deep mysteries of the creative process but it does so via anecdotes and metaphors and parables Annie tells and together they all add up to an experience you know about, you really do know about. The whole thing's like a poem - in the broadest sense - in that its small mundane details take you to somewhere huge and elsewhere entirely. To be read again and again, I'd say.