Response to Bird By Bird -2nd Third

Bird by Bird
Reflection on the second third
July 18, 2010
Lamott writes about set design and how she actually uses other people as a resource when she does not have the background knowledge or experience to write the details of a setting. When she needed a garden setting she actually called a man who worked at a nursery. She continued to call him throughout the year to learn how the plants would look at that specific time. This is just one more validation that writers must be very familiar with what they are writing. I would think that should be a “given”, but perhaps not. The implications for me are that I need to write about what I know or research the information I need to be authentic in my writing. I think this would be good advice for young writers in the classroom as well.
In her chapter on “False Starts”, Lamott writes about the artist who paints and then whites out a section of the canvas. The artist’s repainting is like the writers revision. Each time the artist whites out an area he/she discovers what it isn’t and in doing so comes closer to discovering what it is. I can relate to this from the days when I did paint. The creative process is very divergent for most of us and one thought leads to the next. Sometimes you just have to explore a lot of places before you get to where you need to go.
When Lamott addressed her own book in “Plot Treatment” I could not imagine the persistence she had to have to finally get the final copy. She had to revise it several times before she was done and then it turned out to be one of her most successful novels. The message here is that it may take several drafts to “get it right”. That leads into her next chapter, “How You Know When You do are Done?”. She made two analogies that created vivid pictures in my mind. In the first example she said completing a writing is like putting an octopus to bed. I could picture the arms popping out just as in writing certain parts just keep coming back for revision. Her second comment was that you are done when there is no more steam in the pressure cooker. Sometimes we have just written all that we have to say on a topic and there is no more passion for the subject.
There were several other topics that “spoke” to the writer in me in this second third of her book. One of the useful tips is to keep index cards available and jot down ideas on for writing on them as they come to you. She states that so often she would have an idea and then proceed to forget it if she didn’t write it down. Actually she said that it was the worst feeling to have had a wonderful moment or insight and lose it. I can relate to that and I think the index card idea might be very useful for me.
Lastly, I found her chapter on “Broccoli” to be interesting. She says the most of us lost access to our “broccoli” when we were children. It is the notion that we listened to our intuition when we were small and then our perceptions of what was true were not always welcomed by the adults in our life. Eventually we stopped listening. Lamott encourages us to find and use our “broccoli” again in order to write well. It is all about trusting yourself and that builds intuition and confidence. I’m in pursuit of my broccoli.