Anne Lamott Month

If you're new to the No Shame Novelist Project, find out what it's all about here. Otherwise, read on for some of Anne Lamott's ideas about writing.

Her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is hilarious and helpful at the same time. No one that I know of can tell an anecdote like Anne Lamott. It's a thin book, 237 pages, but it's chock full of good stuff. I hate to have to pick just a few points, but I must.

1. She says to get settled in and write at about the same time each day, so your mind becomes conditioned to doing the work at that time. Fine. During Michael Palmer Month (yesterday, in fact) I mentioned how that didn't seem to work for me. But if Lamott says so, I'll try it again. Nighttime. About 8:00 - 10:00.

2. Lamott gives herself short assignments when she sits down to write: Instead of sitting down to write a novel, she goes to work on a description of the setting in one scene or on one small event at a time. Sounds like something I already do.

3. A friend of hers told her that the first draft is for getting everything down, the second is for fixing everything up, and the third draft is for checking every last detail. I'm almost done with the getting everything down part. After that, I want to let the thing air out for a while before I try to fix it up. Most likely, I'll be starting on a new book, getting everything down again and not worrying about how bad it is--yet.

4. Lamott is adamant that plot comes from the characters. The writer should worry about the characters and their relationships (to themselves, each other, and their situation) instead of plannning a plot line. As readers (and writers), we must be able to believe the characters and believe what they do.

This means that when I start my next book, I won't be working from a detailed outline, even though I just posted about how the outlining technique worked for me. I'll be getting into my characters instead, letting them breathe and walk around and get into trouble.

5. And although I came up with five pages of notes just from re-browsing the book, this is the last piece of Lamott's advice I'll post today: Make space and stillness for the writing to happen. Rather than giving up after a few minutes of blank staring, give it some time. Let the writing come. I don't think Lamott is a fan of the just-sitting-down-to-the-computer- for-15-minutes-today scheme. Very good. I will follow her with full faith...for this month, at least.

[I'm adding one more commitment to my list. Anne Lamott acknowledges that there are days when we are almost completely empty, when the funk takes over and we have nothing to say. She recommends committing to a certain number of words per day so that on the truly blank days we can get those words down as a matter of practice and principle before quitting. Right now, I'm committing to 500 words a day. Even when my whole family is in town for Christmas and staying at our house. And if that really happens, it will be the first Christmas week that I've been able to work through. That's a goal almost as lofty as NaNoWriMo itself.]