Sunday, April 3, 2011
"Bird by Bird"
The more and more I read this book the more and more I get into it. I've reached the point where she puts major emphasis on shitty first drafts. As she says they are truly meant to be shitty. I see exactly where she is coming from because this helps you get down everything that you have on your mind which leaves you later to take out whats not needed. If you don't have that first draft and try to put don't your best work, you aren't doing anything but eliminating the possibility of what great things you could come up with. Perfectionism, as Lamott states is not possible, nor real. When you try to do things perfect you truly only end up making mistakes anyway. Writing is truly more than just writing, it's an experience to put down what interactions you have going on in your mind. If you are truly trying to be a writer, trying to write a perfect story is not going to help you at all!
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I like this Dwayne. Sometimes a really bad first draft can be so discouraging. But Lamott has taken bad and turned it to good. It gives me the gotta-start-somewhere feeling. I like this.
ReplyDeleteYea i'm glad you liked it too....and I definitely feel good about writing now....But I feel bad also because i sit and look at all the poems and stuff I started writing that I thought was just trash and I threw them away. So basically I screwed myself on throwing away somethings that could really have had the potential to be something great lol..
ReplyDeleteI've read bits and pieces of this book along with the other one I'm reading. And I agree with CarolAnn it does give you a gotta start somewhere weather it's good or not
ReplyDeleteLamott, Gilchrist, King, Evanovich -- all of them are so encouraging and inspiring. After I read their books on writing, I want to write and feel almost like I can!
ReplyDelete@Dwayne. I told you never to throw anything away! What if there is one small nugget of gold in one big pile of trash you wrote?