Bird by Bird
Rating: 4 / 5 stars
Read more on Amazon | Subscribe to my monthly newsletter
High-Level Thoughts
A quick read with insightful notes throughout for any writer or creative. There are aspects of the deeper meaning of writing that resonate well wherever you are in life. It covers all the dimensions from writer’s block to the first draft to fully encapsulate the writing process.
Toni Morrison said, ‘The function of freedom is to free someone else,’ and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story.
Summary Notes
“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore”
“For a life oriented to leisure is in the end a life oriented to death, the greatest leisure of all”
“Hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; don’t give up.”
“Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up.”
“An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and that is a great gift”
“Awareness is learning to keep yourself company”
“I had no idea when I started writing that he was in my memory. To me, he is the most important thing that came out of this exercise.”
“Dialogue is the way to nail character, so you have to work on getting the voice right.”
“Then you go back and rewrite. Remember: no one is reading your first drafts.”
“One last thing: dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine.”
“Every room is about memory. Every room gives us layers of information about our past and present and who we are, our shrines and quirks and hopes and soresws, our attempts to prove that we exist and are more or less Okay.”
“The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity. The other, of course, is the river. Metaphors are a great language tool, because they explain the unknown in terms of the known”
“I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?”
“The winds of solitude roaring at the edge of infinity.” How do we, as individuals and communities, behave with that wind blowing behind us?
“Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it.”
“Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.”
“Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.”
“For writers, is that we need to align ourselves with the river of the story, the river of the unconscious, of memory and sensibility of our characters’ lives, which can then pour through us, the straw.”
“The way I dance is by writing. So I wrote about trying to pay closer attention to the world, about taking things less seriously, moving more slowly, stepping outside more often.”
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us”
“Creative-writing classes and ongoing workshops tend to be gentler than conferences, but in all of these situations you may find yourself sitting around a table with a number of other writers who feel morally and aesthetically compelled to rip your story to shreds.”
“Also, an occupational hazard of writing is that you’ll have bad days. You feel not only totally alone but also that everyone else is at a party”
“But I am suggesting that there may be someone out there in the world–maybe a spouse, maybe a close friend–who will read your finished drafts and give you an honest critique,”
“The problem is acceptance, which is something we’re taught not to do. We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings”
“I showed them to my father, who thought it was great that all this pain and fear and loss were being transformed into a story of love and survival”
Toni Morrison said, ‘The function of freedom is to free someone else,’ and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story.
“You are going to have to give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing.”
“‘If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.’ You may want to tape this to the wall near your desk.”
“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious”
“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
“You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
