Articles
"Gems of Simple Wisdom"
from Writers Who Inspire Writers
first published in The Writer magazine
September, 2002
by David Ortmann
I keep three books on my writing desk: an unabridged Dictionary, a refrigerator-sized Thesaurus, and a well-worn paperback copy of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. If I were forced to keep only one, the Dictionary and Thesaurus would have to go. That is how profound an influence this book has had on my development as a writer and as a person.
Several years ago my now former boyfriend, a prolific and successful playwright, gave me Bird by Bird just as I was completing my Masters Degree in Social Work. For the previous two years, academia had chopped away at my creative heart and turned my once unique voice into a passionless clinical drone. When I finally completed my thesis, I remember saying that I never wanted to write again, partly out of exhaustion and partly out of the fear that graduate school had effectively extinguished any creative spark I may have ever had.
Thrilled to finally be able to read for pleasure once again, I opened Bird by Bird and devoured it like a starving street urchin at his first all-you-can-eat buffet. The title refers to an incident in Ms. Lamott's early life. Her brother, then ten years old, had an important school report to write on birds. He'd had three months to write it and on the night before it was due, he hadn't written a word. He was in tears at the family's kitchen table when his father sat down, put his arm around his son and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." Were wiser word ever spoken?
This is the primary message of Ms. Lamott's book: take your time, enjoy the process, do not become obsessed with the final product, and take it bird by bird by bird until you are through. This simple philosophy not only changed my approach to writing, it changed my approach to life.
Before long, I was writing again. I filled napkins, notecards, journals, and several computer discs. I forced myself to forsake grammar, punctuation, and perfection. These things can always be refined during the editing process. I immersed myself in the joyous process of crafting my voice through words and I had never felt more alive. More important than what I learned from Anne Lamott, is what her book helped me unlearn. I shed the skin of academia and graduate school and unlearned passionless, clinical writing. I took chances and let myself write stuff that was unfinished, poorly focused, or just plain bad. I silenced my inner critic, a voice fueled by parents, teachers, and sometimes other writers. I wrote. I wrote more. And then I wrote some more.
Soon I was publishing, at first editorials and op-ed pieces for local magazines and newspapers. Assignments for feature length articles presented themselves and I took them, enjoying the process of lending my voice to whatever the topic at hand was. I was thrilled when my first essay was included in a national anthology. My first short story soon followed that same path. A local radio station took a liking to my op-ed pieces and I was asked to read them on-air. I am currently finishing my first novel, which will be published later this year. For all these successes, I have a stack of rejection letters easily as thick as a telephone book, but I don't care. They remind me that I am putting myself out there and taking chances.
When I feel blocked, untalented, lazy, self-critical, neurotic, or simply bored, I open Bird by Bird and continue to find gems of simple wisdom which always bring me back to the pen, the paper, the word processor, and to those things among which I feel most at home. I am a writer. I can claim that now, without shame, fear, or uncertainty. Being published is wonderful, but I would still be a writer if I hadn't published a thing. It is the process of writing that makes the writer, not the product or commercial validation of that product.
In fables and allegories, writers spin tales of novices seeking out the wise sage at the top of the mountain who dispenses simple but profound advice. In our world, I believe there is more than one of these mystics who walk among us. Anne Lamott is one of them.
As my writing career progresses, I find myself envisioning more goals for myself. One of them is to eventually meet Anne Lamott and to simply say, "Thank you."
Thank you, Ann.