by Anne Lamott
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Product Description
Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Amazon.com
Think you've got a book inside of you? Anne Lamott isn't afraid to help you let it out. She'll help you find your passion and your voice, beginning from the first really crummy draft to the peculiar letdown of publication. Readers will be reminded of the energizing books of writer Natalie Goldberg and will be seduced by Lamott's witty take on the reality of a writer's life, which has little to do with literary parties and a lot to do with jealousy, writer's block and going for broke with each paragraph. Marvelously wise and best of all, great reading.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Not just another how-to textbook; a must for the writer wanna-be, 2008-07-17
A cursory look at the index might have one thinking this is just another step-by-step guide to a successful, publishable writing career...with chapters neatly organized by "character, plot, dialogue..." Ever so subtley, with unexpected laughs around every turn, the first chapter pulled me in as if I was a kid listening to a good friend tell me a crazy story propped on an easy lawnchair in my own backyard.
I adore Lamott's down and dirty frankness about the odds of publishing, and hysterically saw myself (a hopeful wanna-be writer) as one of her eager if not naive students. What an incredibly refreshing way she has of 'teaching' "us" through the most satiric, sometimes moronic, always satisfying stories and examples.
I read much of the book on an airplane and caught myself laughing out loud at times. During the poignant and carefully observed and recorded nursing home scene, I had to hide my watery eyes, only to go back and re-read the author's uniquely touching phraseology over and over again.
I think Lamott is a genius author, a wise and witty spirit, a superb mentor who knows how to grab her reader and then, sereptitiously teach her invaluable lessons on writing and life that will stick because of the intelligent and humorous context in which she reveals them.
The read is fast, but the lessons therein will last a lifetime and interestingly, the book has given me the boost and confidence I needed to write, write, write.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Pep in your step!, 2008-07-13
This is a put a pep-in-your-step writing book. It's really a book with instructions on having a WRITING life. I'm still in the thick of it but I've never laughed so hard or felt so motivated by a book to write.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 helps the author, not the reader, 2008-07-12
The best advice is in the title, which is, in other words, "step by step." I can't remember if it is this book, or "Plan B," in which the author recounts taking rolls of dimes from an older black woman in the church she attended, even after she didn't need them any more, with the rationalization that it somehow helped the older black woman to give Lamott her meager savings. She can't even disguise her opportunist ways in her writing. This book is actually pretty bleak, to me. Just because Lamott has kinky hair and feels like an outcast, she attended black churches. How condescending to the members there: "I'm one of you because I feel like the lowest member of society and can't manage to get my act together. Oh, by the way, give me money because I had a child out of wedlock. That makes me so unusual." Lamott idolizes her father, who drank like a fish himeself, and allowed her as a minor to drink and hang out with his buddies, and vilifies and dismisses her mother who successfully completed law school and started a productive career at an unlikely age. This book, as all her books, recounts the author's serious drug addictions and her self-indulgence. How many can afford to spend a month or two in complete retreat to re-write a novel that was rejected? I guess if you don't mind taking rolls of dimes from poor black women, you can. But it's not on my list of to-do's for success. Stick to truly disciplined folk, like Michael Jordan for one, for advice on success in anything.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
The greatest book on writing and creativity, 2008-07-12
As I tell my friends: this is likely the most under-rated book of all time. From organizing your thoughts, to finding your creativity, to getting it all onto a piece of paper, this book serves as a guide for every person that wants to improve their ability to communicate. Anne Lamott is a talented writer, but an even more talented teacher. Get this book if you'd like to improve every facet of your writing.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
You Need Broccoli, 2008-06-25
Titles are important. I probably wouldn't have read a book entitled Some Instructions on Writing and Life, but I was captivated by one titled Bird by Bird. What could such a book tell me about life and writing? Whatever it was, the title itself held the promise of something fun, a little offbeat, and yes, instructive too. I wasn't wrong. This, to me, is one of the best books I've ever read about writing. Although I'm not a fiction writer, Lamott's wit and wisdom applies to me and to anyone else who's ever felt the desire to put pen to paper...or fingers to keyboard.
Everyone who reads Bird by Bird will find something to appreciate. I like the way Lamott shares such wonderful advice while sharing experiences from her life. Her love for her father, Sam, and Pammy are there; so are her impressions from the nursing home, the Special Olympics, school lunches, and the death of a five-month-old child. Sad but funny is the experience with her agent who said, "I'm sorry." Read it and you'll see what I mean.
Are there secrets to writing? Yes and no. Lamott credits the "secret" to Natalie Goldberg who, when someone asked her for the best possible writing advice she had to offer, held up a yellow legal pad, pretended her fingers held a pen, and scribbled away. When Lamott's students ask her that question, she picks up a piece of paper and pantomimes scribbling. In other words, just do it. Oh, and when you're scribbling away, remember that "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor."
To give you an idea of Lamott's sense of humor, she quotes a friend who says that the first draft is the down draft because you focus on getting it down. The second is the up draft, the one that you fix it up. "And the third draft is dental draft, where you check very tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy." Gotta love that!
For anyone tired of reading about dangling modifiers and pronoun agreement, read something refreshing like Bird by Bird. You'll be glad you did.
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