Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.”

Bird by Bird - Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

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Of all the writer self-help books I’ve been reading, this is probably the most personal. Ms. Lamott doesn’t write for fun. For her, writing requires she rip open a vein and expose every jagged nerve ending to get at the “truth” of her writing. Her books, fiction and memoir, are painful and true. She gives practical guidance on how to strip away the non-essential and get to the heart of the matter. The title, Bird by Bird, refers to something her father told her brother […]

Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth

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CBR10Bingo: Throwback Thursday I was all set to read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon for my Throwback Thursday square, but I’d been struggling so much recently with my writing that I made a last-minute substitution, needing the pick-me-up that Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird never fails to deliver. When I decided to get back into writing 13 years ago, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird was the first of many books on writing that I bought and read, but so far it’s the only one I’ve […]

How alive are you willing to be?

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“Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?” I read this some years ago and I had somewhat of a different view. I remember it as boring, unnecessary, unfunny and a ton of condescension. For some reason though I felt compelled to read it again I loved it. I cried. I laughed. I related so damn much. In between my two reading I have written so much more. I have loved […]

Delightful and Difficult Thoughts on Faith

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My husband and I just started a book club with a few people in our area, and the inaugural book was Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies. I’d read some of her stuff on writing (and Bird by Bird is particularly excellent, especially if you tend to beat yourself up about your writing or get discouraged easily), but not her stuff on faith. So I was delighted and pleased that Traveling Mercies was just as rejuvenating as Bird by Bird. There’s no “plot” to this kind of […]



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