My blog is about Anne Dillard and first and foremost, I would like to give you a little background about this author. Anne was born of affluent parents in Connecticut who encouraged her choice in writing profesionally. She was a rebel in high school and was influenced at that point by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. She went to college near Roanoke, Virginia called Hollins College and married her writing teacher. She graduated with a Master's degree in English and wrote a forty page thesis on Thoreau's "Waldon", and so Anne's writing reflected her love for nature. This love combined with her admiration for Thoreau's style of writing is reflected greatly in her own work as well.
On writing, Anne says "you make the path boldly, and follow it fearfully", and also quotes Jack London by saying, "every writer needs a technique, experience, and philosophical position." In describing some of the pitfalls one can encounter when writing anything of substance, what I am getting from her reading the most is that everyone has to have a focal point and that we all have things that sidetrack us from our goal, but most importantly, rewriting and changing the direction of your theme can and will happen numerous times before completion of any serious body of work and that it is part of the process.
Charlie, thanks for posting on Annie Dillard. It is encouraging to know that even an experienced writer tends to change course several times and can be distracted. I struggle with this aspect of writing quite often - being 'sidetracked' from my original goal.
ReplyDeleteI think a struggle that I also share with Dillard is trying to decide exactly what to rewrite, take out, etc... Sometimes after I have completed a piece of writing,I will wait a few days and its a toss of the coin as to whether I am satisfied or repulsed. It is so difficult at times to decide on which direction to go, but I have found,especially after reading some of the metaphors on this struggle from Dillard, to treat the sifting through of material as just another step in making something passable transform into something of substance.
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