Anne Lamott is the queen of writing teachers. Ask 100 writers for their favorite book about the craft, and her book, Bird by Bird, will top the list.
Everybody who's tried to make a work of art knows how loud the inner critic can be. When struggle comes, most people try harder. But Anne says: "The point is not to try harder; it's to resist life less."
Improving as a writer is about becoming more aware and paying closer attention to what's already around you, and this conversation is about how to do that.
It centers around her famous writing advice: “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
Transcript
0:39 Bird by Bird
2:17 Why writer’s block isn’t real
3:36 The problem with trying harder
9:06 Every book has three drafts
14:24 Learning to observe the world
15:58 Facing your inner critic
27:59 “Help, thanks, wow”
31:16 You get three pages
35:51 Revenge = fuel
38:26 Anne’s #1 writing prompt
48:53 Finding writing ideas
54:57 Writing lessons from movies
1:02:08 The ABDCE storytelling formula
1:05:37 What makes for a good ending?
1:10:57 Dealing with criticism
1:16:28 Writing to be fully alive
David (00:39-01:19):
While preparing for this conversation, an image came to mind. One morning, driving from San Francisco to Monterey around 6:00 or 6:15 AM, the fog was so thick that I could only see the headlights or taillights of the car directly in front of me. You have to follow that car, unable to see very far ahead. This reminded me of how you approach writing: you only need to see a little bit in advance, and you can follow that. You don’t need to see the entire road; if you can just see a little and keep going, taking it “bird by bird,” eventually a book, a piece, or whatever it is, begins to emerge.
Anne (01:19-02:17):
E.L. Doctorow, one of my favorite novelists, once said in an interview that writing is like driving at night with your headlights on. You can only see a little way in front of you, but you can make the whole journey that way.
I added the fog when I started repeating that sentiment, because people who aren’t writers often believe that inspiration strikes, and you just sit down and start writing. It’s not like that at all; it’s quite foggy. I might have an image, a theme, or something I genuinely want to explore on paper. However, I can’t see how it will turn out, where it will end, or what I will discover along the way.
Through habit, I’ve learned that this uncertainty is okay. I can see the set of headlights in front of me, and I’m grateful for them because they allow me to get from at least point A to point B. When I reach point B, which might be two paragraphs later, it will inform me of where we might go next.
David (02:17-02:20):
What do you believe writer’s block truly is, then?
Anne (02:21-03:35):
I wrote extensively about writer’s block in Bird by Bird because I believe it’s a misnomer. I use the image that if your wife has locked you out, your problem isn’t with the door; the issue is deeper than that. With writer’s block, I think it often means you’re empty.
About 30 years ago, Isabel Allende and I were on a panel, and she confided in me that she, Isabel Allende, had writer’s block. I told her, “I don’t think you’re blocked; I think you’re truly empty. It’s as if all the sand has escaped from the burlap sack.” What you need to do is fill up, relieve the pressure on yourself, take some time, and just replenish.
In Bird by Bird, I describe a “rag bag guy” at the center of every writer, perhaps every soul. Our job is to go around, pay attention, and accumulate bits of fabric for the quilt: threads, dental floss, tinsel, silk, and other pieces. We keep giving these to the rag bag guy. Then, when we’re ready, he or she will present them to us, and we begin assembling the quilt, whether it’s an essay, a novel, or a memoir.
David (03:36-03:44):
Help me weave a few things together regarding your relationship with yourself as a writer. I’ve picked up on a few concepts. One is what you call the “rag—”
Anne (03:44-03:45):
The “rag bag.”
David (03:45-04:15):
So, you have the “rag bag guy” and the quilt coming together, the idea of being empty and needing to fill up through experiences, friends, and so forth. Then, on the other side, there’s the aversion to writing and the need to maintain a routine of sitting down to write.
How do you differentiate between genuinely needing to “fill up” and simply lying to yourself, saying, “I just need to accumulate more experiences,” which can lead to procrastination that stretches over months or even years?
Anne (04:15-06:26):
It’s not about accumulating more experiences, because that often creates more pressure. It’s about paying better attention. I had a priest friend, an old man named Terry Ritchie, who recently passed away. He used to say, “The point is not to try harder; it’s to resist life less.” So, it’s not about trying to force something to happen or “jiggle it out of the universe.” It’s about awareness.
It’s about agreeing to simply become aware and to start noticing. You might notice a certain color, and that’s all you need. I don’t need the grand experience. I could describe your orchids, the slightly greenish-yellow inside the center of your orchid, and then use that detail to describe someone’s eyes later. I just notice it. The writer’s job is to pay attention to life as it tromps by.
This is a bit off-topic, but there was a priest named Father Dowling who helped the very neurotic Bill Wilson get AA off the ground in 1935. Father Dowling told Bill, “Sometimes I think that heaven is just a new pair of glasses.” I use that concept in all my Bird by Bird writing workshops because it’s about putting on a better pair of glasses and truly waking up.
It’s about stopping hitting the snooze button and starting to pay attention to people’s faces, their eyes, the landscape, the sky, and the ground beneath you. What we do to meet our writing self is to meet it halfway by noticing. I’m not suggesting you fill up with more experiences or more friends. Instead, you simply start paying really close attention.
My husband, Neal Allen, who is the co-author of Good Writing, and whose last book was called Better Days: Tame Your Inner Critic, changed my life almost ten years ago. On our first date, he asked me, “Have you ever noticed a voice inside of you that discourages you with your writing or tells you to stay small, making you scared of trying new things?” I responded, “Have I ever? I’m experiencing it right now; I don’t think I wore the right blouse.”
David (06:26-06:27):
All the time.
Anne (06:27-08:53):
I experience it all the time. I’m almost 72. Neil taught me how to address it: by noticing it and saying, “Oh, it’s you. It’s not truth. It’s not the reality of my life as a writer. It’s this old internalized voice from when I was four or five years old.”
That voice kept me alive as a child because it prevented me from running into the street or swimming too far. Neil taught me to acknowledge it and tell it, “Why don’t you go to the library? Sit down right there and get a book to read. I have work to do, but I’ll come get you if I need an ethical consultation or something.” It’s your superego, terrified of being killed and annihilated. But you tell it, “No, no, you go to the library and read. I’ll come get you as needed.”
That’s the work I do, because everything I need for every piece I’m working on is already there. I’ve always believed with my novels that the characters know who they are and what would happen naturally in their lives. I have to get out of the way so they can tug on my sleeves and say, “I wouldn’t do that.”
There’s a rule in good writing: if it sounds literary, remove it. If you’re trying to sound literary, take it out. But I’m always trying to get my characters to say things they wouldn’t naturally say, just because they’re brilliant, ironic, funny, or will make people think I’m not a buzzkill. I have to remove them all. As Jessica Mitford said, “Kill your little darlings.”
You kill your little darlings in the second draft. You write a truly terrible first draft, and then you can apply these literary rules. Everything in you wants you to not write. So, the first thing I tell my “Bird by Bird” workshops is, “You’ve got to stop not writing.”
Many people in my workshops explain that they’re going to start writing as soon as their last child is out of the house, as soon as they move to the rushing river, or as soon as they retire. I tell them, “That’s fine, but if you’re not writing now, you’re not going to write then.” The inner critic is telling you not to write. Believe me, no one in your family is glad to hear you’re working on a memoir.
David (08:54-08:58):
What was the line you said? “The key is not to...”
Anne (08:58-09:02):
The key is not to try harder, but to resist less.
David (09:02-09:12):
What a beautiful line. When you’re at the keyboard, how does that sentence manifest itself? How do you channel that idea?
Anne (09:12-10:12):
One rule in good writing is to trust your voice and to trust the process. If you sit down and start writing, it’s like getting into very cold water. Once you’re in, you might as well paddle around for a minute.
So I paddled around, then I had another image. It was all terrible, and by the time I finished, it was way too long—perhaps a third too long. Then I go back. One of the rules in good writing is to remove the boring stuff. I took out some of the overly long descriptions and the parts that made me look good.
Then I had a really workable second draft. I applied the rules: I took out “verys” and “actuallys,” and I wrote stronger verbs. All of a sudden, I had 600 words, a couple of manuscript pages, which was what I had been after all along. Yet, if you had asked me when I sat down, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that. This is how I write, over and over again.
David (10:13-10:15):
Tell me about stronger verbs.
Anne (10:15-10:42):
On our second date, Neil handed me his list of 34 rules. The subtitle is “36 Ways to Improve your sentences,” but I added “write the hard stuff,” which you like, and “take out the boring stuff,” which I like. His first rule, however, is to use strong verbs.
For example, you could say, “Guy walked down the hall towards the kitchen.” That’s not interesting.
David (10:42-10:44):
He stumbled down the hall.
Anne (10:44-11:56):
What if Guy stumbled down the hall? What if he staggered down the hall? What if Guy army-crawled down the hall? You keep finding a stronger verb with your second draft.
Regarding the first draft, in Bird by Bird, I mentioned there are three drafts. The first is the child’s draft. Our pediatrician in the fifties was Dr. Spock, whose baby book sold something like 12 million copies. Our parents raised us on Dr. Spock. He said that with two-year-olds, you must be firm but friendly. That’s how I edit my first draft. I’m firm but friendly.
I might say, “I like this description, but we’re going to maybe use it somewhere else,” which is a nice way of saying we’re going to cut it here. That’s the adult draft, where you remove things, fix them, and find stronger verbs.
The third draft in Bird by Bird I described as the dental draft. You go tooth by tooth, wiggling and jiggling, flossing. Some teeth might need a little attention, while some are fine. You go on to the next one. That’s really what good writing is: the dental draft. I forgot the question.
David (11:56-12:01):
So did I. I was listening. It was about verbs.
Anne (12:01-12:03):
Yes.
David (12:03-12:04):
Do you have any more to say on that?
Anne (12:04-12:31):
When I was a young writer, I didn’t realize everyone used a thesaurus and thought I was cheating. However, it’s an invaluable tool because it immerses you in words, which is what writing is all about.
You have to amass a kind of battered old toolbox to get anywhere with writing. We hope that good writing functions as a toolbox, and a thesaurus simply can’t be beaten.
David (12:31-12:43):
With a thesaurus, I think of three categories of words. First, there are words you know and use. The second category consists of words you don’t know and don’t use—those are the fancy words.
Anne (12:43-12:44):
Yes.
David (12:44-13:23):
There’s a useful middle category in the thesaurus: words you know but don’t typically use. They feel subterranean. Then you think, “Ah, that’s a good one,” and pluck it.
For example, if I’m writing about crying, I know the word “wept.” It’s not fancy, but if I access that word, it’s a perfect fit. “Yes, that’s what I was looking for.”
The implicit temptation with a thesaurus is to try to sound literary. You’re saying no, but there’s still significant use in finding that middle category of words.
Anne (13:23-14:24):
Exactly. My dad was a writer, and he taught me the habits of writing. You don’t wait for inspiration; there’s no such thing. You sit down every day at the same time and get your work done.
If you want to be a writer, you will be. It’s like having a Willy Wonka golden ticket. So, you write as a debt of honor. Maybe you’ll get published, maybe not; no one knows. But you sit down and write.
My dad was strict about using five-cent “nickel words” instead of twenty-five-cent words. One of Neil’s rules is to avoid words readers have to look up. Shirley Jackson said, “A confused reader is an antagonistic reader.”
If I have to look up your words, I assume you lack confidence. If I read two or three pages of your book in a bookstore and encounter words I don’t know, I probably won’t buy it.
David (14:24-14:43):
Tell me more about observation. We’ve discussed external observation—simply opening your eyes, listening, and observing. But there’s also the observation that comes from the friends you surround yourself with. Those friends are observant themselves, have good lines, make sharp observations, and are funny.
Anne (14:43-15:58):
I’ve always said, as I wrote in Bird by Bird, that you should have the most brilliant, fabulous friends possible, but none of them should be writers. If they say something great, they’ll want to use it themselves.
As we started, it’s about paying attention. Imagine being in the express lane at Whole Foods. There’s an older person in front of you with seventeen items, using coupons. You have an opinion, but you keep it to yourself because you were raised well. The person behind you, however, is muttering. You get that down because it’s important. You may use it, you may not.
In Bird by Bird, this was before cell phones, I always told my students to carry a pen and an index card in their back pocket. Then, at home, they would add the card to a pile. You may use it or not.
I may not use the specific shade of green in the center of your purple orchids. But I write it down because the act of writing makes it almost indelible—especially at your age. Writing it down in your phone notes functions the same way.
David (15:58-16:12):
How did your relationship with God change your relationship with the inner critic? You describe your relationship with him as focused on grace and forgiveness.
Anne (16:14-17:55):
Neil’s work with his clients—and with me on our second date—changed my life. I had never quite had an image for my inner critic before.
His work involves bringing your inner critic out, examining it, and understanding who it is. Most people identify it as a mother’s or father’s nagging, hectoring voice, asking, “Why are you wasting your time writing?”
Mine was an awful personality from New York City publishing. I’ve been in publishing for 45 years, and this goes back that far. As soon as I could identify that voice, I understood it. I wouldn’t call it the devil or an enemy, but it was the voice that thwarts me, telling me I’m not good enough, not a “New York City glitterati type.”
For all those years, with God and without understanding the inner critic, I had to carry these two voices at once. I’d always hear God gentling me like a horse, saying, “This is really good. I like this. It’s going to be good. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Then I’d also hear the other voice. It’s like the cartoon with an angel and a devil on each shoulder. Everything has gotten much easier since I’ve been able to visualize that critic—which, at the time, had been telling me for 62 years that what I was doing would not work out in the end.
David (17:55-18:00):
How did you visualize the critic? Do you see or name it?
Anne (18:00-19:53):
You can read about this in Neil’s book, Better Days. When we enacted this last night on stage, you realize where your inner critic resides. For most people, it’s in the head. For us creative types, it might be in the torso. You bring it forward, hold it in your hand, and begin to talk to it. You embody both voices.
I ask it, “Who hired you?” It usually responds, “You did.” “Why did I hire you?” “Because you were afraid of looking mad, afraid of embarrassing yourself.” “When did I first hire you?” “You were five, starting kindergarten, already developing that toxic self-consciousness.”
You continue to converse with it until you eventually declare, “I’d like to take over.” It worries about you taking control because you might make a fool of yourself. We’ve all experienced embarrassment and disgrace. In my public life, it’s happened with large audiences. Yet, I point out to my inner critic that it was supposedly in charge when those incidents occurred.
I ask if it can trust me to take over. It begrudgingly replies, “Maybe.” Then, I ask it to go to the library because I’m currently occupied.
I could vividly picture this voice, one that only esteemed an elitist, white male New Yorker writer, not an aging, hippie, California “hugger” type. Hearing that almost ten years ago, picturing the voice I had internalized as a very young writer—I sold my first book to Viking at 25, and I’ll be 72 soon—I always heard that voice and saw that face. It was wonderful to see it and finally say, “Thank you for keeping me alive as a child, but I won’t be needing you right now. I’m in the middle of something.”
David (19:55-20:14):
Tell me about dialogue. How do you learn to listen to people speak, observe those patterns, and then translate that onto the page? Dialogue in writing must have a kernel of truth, yet it’s very different from how people actually speak on a bus, at a restaurant, or in a park.
Anne (20:14-21:19):
Poor or weak dialogue is the main reason I won’t buy a book. If I read the first three pages during an audition and the dialogue feels forced, too clipped, or overly witty, I’m simply not interested. We don’t speak that way.
In good writing, as I always say in Bird by Bird, you should write a ton of dialogue, then take most of it out. Read what you’ve written aloud. You’ll hear how artificial it sounds; people don’t converse in clipped, perfect sentences. We should recognize which character is speaking by their rhythm and vocabulary, not by you explicitly stating, “Andrea said.”
One of the fundamental rules of good writing is that you can only use “said.” You cannot write, “Andrea chuckled.”
David (21:19-21:23):
Why would you impose that rule, given our earlier discussion about verb usage?
Anne (21:24-22:21):
Because it becomes artificial and sophomoric. The author is simply trying to find substitutes for “said.” I prefer patches of dialogue with only quotation marks, without constant “he said, she said” attributions, which would also be a drag.
If you start writing “he chuckled,” “he enthused,” or “he proclaimed,” I should be able to discern who is speaking, and their emotional state, through the verbs within the dialogue itself and the rhythm of their speech. I can also describe the person’s actions, like what they’re doing with their hands or mouth, provided I use a strong verb and no adverb.
However, dialogue is truly tough. In the old days, I had all my students buy Radio Shack...
David (22:23-22:23):
...recorders,
Anne (22:23-22:50):
...tape recorders. Now, of course, it’s just the voice memo on your phone. If you read your dialogue aloud, you’ll cringe when you hear sentences that ring false, sounding like someone who had ample time to rewrite them beforehand.
Another way to learn dialogue is to read the masters—to sit at the feet of authors like Doctorow and Nora Ephron, who are exceptional with dialogue.
David (22:50-22:51):
What did you learn from them?
Anne (22:52-23:47):
I learned that you can make dialogue truly interesting without trying too hard. It can be just a few sentences that make you laugh out loud. For instance, at the end of your soliloquy, someone might simply say, “Good to know.” You burst out laughing. Or they might look at you blankly and say, “Whatever,” like a teenager, or “No problem.”
The core lesson from both Bird by Bird and good writing is that you can do anything if you can get away with it—if you don’t lose me as the reader. I’ve read books that are almost entirely dialect. Peter Matthiessen’s brilliant book, Far Tortuga, is in Patois, most of it.
David (23:47-23:48):
What is Patois?
Anne (23:48-24:36):
It’s the lingo or dialect, like in New Orleans, a mix of Caribbean and Native American. It’s complicated. I would read it for its brilliant characters and unfolding plot, but mostly because I’m an old person and I’m tired. I don’t want to work.
I don’t want to dissect your dialogue or wait to see if you’ll get to the point; I want you to get there directly. Again, a confused or bored reader is an antagonistic reader. Long patches of dialogue, for instance, tend not to work for me.
David (24:38-24:41):
I love that word, “clipped.” Clipped dialogue.
Anne (24:41-24:42):
Yes.
David (24:42-24:43):
Explain that to me.
Anne (24:43-24:49):
Some writers can get away with clipped dialogue. It means snappy.
David (24:49-24:51):
If you have characters, that’s your negative connotation, correct?
Anne (24:52-25:41):
If someone is snappy but warm, doing good for those around them, and simply in a hurry, that’s different. If it’s someone at a cocktail party trying to impress you with their over-education, then it is tiresome.
I remember Updike, who I grew up on, revered, and learned dialogue from. (He had tiny issues with women, but setting that aside for a moment.) He once said in a story that being at a cocktail party, with people talking at him, felt like being pelted by tiny ping-pong balls.
I love that description. That’s how snappy dialogue, when uncalled for, makes me feel. I feel pelted.
David (25:41-25:45):
How much has Marin County, or the state of California, influenced your work?
Anne (25:46-25:48):
I am just so entirely California.
David (25:48-25:49):
You are California.
Anne (25:49-26:28):
I am California to my core. The West Coast is infinitely less ironic. My husband was raised on the East Coast in Arlington. When he moved to the West Coast twenty years ago, he was shocked by how mellow people tended to be. It’s infinitely less ironic and competitive; that’s just the effect California has on you.
The way I write has actually been troubling for East Coast reviewers. My style isn’t what they typically give their stamp of approval to.
David (26:29-26:38):
Explain the differences in writing quality between your approach and what you perceive as the East Coast style.
Anne (26:39-27:58):
Consider Jonathan Franzen, for instance. He is very famous and highly revered by East Coast critics. He writes in a very lofty way, with beautiful sentences, fancy words, and an erudite, complex style. I don’t write like that; that complexity is precisely what East Coast critics love.
There are, of course, many East Coast writers who don’t write that way. But my style aligns more with the West Coast tradition, perhaps like the Beatniks or the San Francisco avant-garde. Evan Connell, for example, writes more in an East Coast vein, though he’s from St. Louis.
There’s a distinct sensibility here, partly because the weather is warmer. We aren’t in a state of clutched, held breath as much as people on the East Coast might be. It’s a different sensibility. We’re not ancient; we haven’t been around that long—only about 150 years compared to their 400.
David (27:58-28:26):
I’ve wanted to ask you this: with your book Help. Thanks. Wow. right here, and considering we’re talking about observation and opening your eyes, how do you cultivate and restore that sense of “wow”? How do you truly open your eyes to it, especially when so much of our daily experience can be quite myopic?
David (28:27-28:28):
Claustrophobic, definitely.
Anne (28:29-31:15):
You get that sense of “wow,” I think, partly by deciding to be available for it. One of the great gifts of being a writer is that it helps restore your curiosity. They stop grading for curiosity in first grade, and many of us set it aside because it wasn’t truly encouraged. While imagination and curiosity were fostered, excelling at long division was often valued more.
As we grow up, deciding to become a writer—carrying an index card, a pen, or your phone for notes—means you’ve actively chosen to start paying attention again.
Yesterday morning, my husband and I left our boutique apartment with the broken sink. My feet and knee were really sore from the day before, and I had a media engagement I wasn’t looking forward to. We decided to stop into an Irish tavern for breakfast; it was a great price for a ton of food. We were the only ones there. The bartender, a very genial Irishman of about sixty, came over. He could barely keep a straight face, and we thought he was punking us. Seeing that, I started laughing.
As I wrote in Help. Thanks. Wow., “laughter is carbonated holiness.” I love that: once you’re laughing, you’re back on sacred ground. At that moment, I decided to pay attention to this guy. It felt like being spritzed by a plant. We started talking, and he got us everything.
Then I asked for the Wi-Fi password. It turned out to be “147 Guinness.” He started spelling “Guinness” for me—”two Ns to it”—and I said, “I’m a sober alcoholic; I’ve been sober for decades. Believe me, I really remember how to spell Guinness.” He laughed.
While Neil was in the bathroom, the bartender came over and said sotto voce, “How long have you been sober?” I told him, “I’m coming up on 40 years.” He responded, “Wow, the third great prayer.” He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a 24-hour chip and a six-month chip, saying, “I just celebrated six months clean and sober.” We both exclaimed, “Wow!” because that’s a miracle for anyone.
Suddenly, I had a new perspective, a fresh pair of glasses, paying attention. I used that story in the piece I was writing this morning, just as I described earlier. That’s how it all works.
David (31:16-31:26):
When you open a book, what truly matters to you on the first page, the first few pages, or even the first sentence?
Anne (31:26-33:43):
I’ll give a book three pages, usually when I’m auditioning it as a reader in a bookstore. Usually, I’ve read good reviews about it – although there are almost no reviews anywhere anymore – or someone has told me they loved it. I’ll pick it up and read the first few pages, looking for someone who writes really nice sentences.
MFK Fisher, probably the world’s greatest food writer, said that as a writer, your job is to write one clean, fresh sentence and put a period at the end of it. I’ll start reading, looking for sentences that are pleasing to me. I’ll read a little more, just noticing, “Oh, I like this. I want to get to the bottom of this paragraph.” Then I turn a page and keep reading, thinking, “Oh, I like this. I want to continue.”
The sentences should be pleasing, not ostentatious or showy. You know the rule: if it’s too literary, I’m not interested. I want it to be really human.
Ever since we arrived on Earth, we’ve loved stories about ourselves. The first storytellers gathered people around the campfire, telling tales about their ancestry, what they made of it all, what the lightning meant, and what the water signified. That’s what I still want to read about.
I want authors to hold up a mirror for me. Whether it’s science fiction or takes place in ancient Egypt, I want it to be about the drama of humankind. I’ll even pay extra if it’s funny. That’s what I’m looking for in the first three pages: pleasing sentences and someone with a story to tell.
My favorite quote, and there are some amazing quotes about good writing in this book, is something my screenwriter friend Randy Mayam Singer said. She wrote Mrs. Doubtfire and a bunch of other films. Her quote is seven words: “Tell me a story, make me care.”
David (33:44-33:45):
How do you make people care?
Anne (33:45-35:06):
If you’re writing a novel, you need characters people want to learn more about. They should recognize them as real people. Maybe it’s Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces, who has absolutely nothing in common with me, but I recognize him as a dear, messed-up human, just like the rest of us.
If there’s nothing wrong with you, I’m not interested. If there’s nothing wrong with you, there’s zero chance I want to sit with you at the dinner table, no matter how brilliant or educated you are. So, the character should be someone I recognize as one of us. Something has to be happening that makes me worried for them, that makes me care.
As I wrote about extensively in Bird by Bird, there must be something at stake; the character has something to lose. We all have similar things to lose: our sense of meaning, our connection to other people. We can experience a sense of loss that feels unsurvivable.
So, it’s a character who feels real and human, caught in a predicament I can identify with, where I’m rooting for them. I want to find out what happens. That’s how you make me care.
David (35:07-35:10):
The word ‘desire’ came to mind. Do they need to want something?
Anne (35:11-35:51):
That’s a good question. Usually, what you want is the same thing that’s at stake. I want my son, who’s 37, and my grandson, who’s 17, to outlive me. At this stage of my life, that’s basically all I want.
So that’s what’s at stake. If I mention that on the first or second page, it’s like Ibsen saying, “If there’s a gun in the first act, it really needs to go off at some point,” right? So if I say in the first couple of pages that all I care about is my son and grandson surviving me, it creates a pulse. We’ll think, “Uh-oh!”
David (35:51-35:55):
Talk to me about this relationship: you need to like your main character, but they don’t need...
Anne (35:56-35:57):
You don’t need to like them.
David (35:57-35:57):
...to be perfect.
Anne (35:58-36:40):
You don’t need to like your main character. The great short story writer Ethan Canin, who now teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and I have been debating this for 35 years. He believes the most important thing is to have a likable character, and that you should never... While that might be true, you can also have a really screwed-up character, totally self-obsessed but kind of pathetic in a way that I relate to.
What we’ve been fighting about is his belief that you should never write out of revenge. I always told my students, “You need no other reason than for the kids who tormented you in seventh and eighth grade to eat it when they see it. Back at you, man. Back at you.”
David (36:40-36:44):
I’ll prove something to you! There you go, big bully.
Anne (36:44-36:45):
Yes.
David (36:45-36:47):
How did you get to the revenge point?
Anne (36:48-37:14):
I discovered that early on. I started writing my first novel when my dad got sick with brain cancer when I was 23. He said, “I’m going to write my version of this; why don’t you write your version?” We were a small family – my two brothers, my dad, and I – living in a little hippie town on the coast in ‘77. This was Tiburon, this was Bolinas.
David (37:14-37:16):
Bolinas, the surf town.
Anne (37:16-38:26):
A surf town, a hippie town. What I discovered, and what he taught me, was that when you decide to be a writer, everything is grist for the mill. Every experience, every thought – you put it all down, then you take out the boring stuff. I realized I could use everything that happened, especially everything cruel that happened to me.
Of course, you have to worry a little bit about slander and libel. So I have to change a person’s hair color and their height. For example, I might make you a towhead who is only five feet three. Then you won’t recognize yourself or sue me, because you wouldn’t be recognizable to the public.
But I could use all the cruel things you’ve said to me so far in this first hour against you. I could even use direct quotes, but you couldn’t sue me. That’s how I started to understand that people behaving really badly were a recognizable enemy to everyone. People who put you down—for your values, your looks, your hair, for whatever reason.
David (38:26-38:33):
What was that line about childhood? If you’ve gone through a childhood, you have enough to write about it.
Anne (38:33-40:26):
That’s Flannery O’Connor. She wrote a book that many don’t read enough, where she said, “If you’ve survived your childhood, you have enough to write about for the rest of your life.” It’s truly a great prompt.
My son has a writing workshop, a collective with 700 writers called arightingroom.com—not thewritingroom.com, who are our mortal enemy. At arightingroom.com, they have a prompt every morning. Often, the prompt is, “Tell me a childhood memory.” If I ask you to do that, you’ll be able to write for a month.
My advice, which I often share in talks, is to make a list of every childhood memory. Start with your very first holiday, your earliest experiences of nursery school. You might have a flicker of something from age three, maybe a little from four. By five, things start happening because you’re in society. You’re on the blacktop, where any sense of safety you might have had before ends.
I’ll share a prompt now that, for your listeners, could unleash an entire book. This is a common prompt: “There was a tree.”
Tell me about that tree. Is it from your childhood? Is it the cherry tree outside your window that is not yet in blossom, but budding? Is it the tree you fell out of in second grade, where you got a cast that was incredibly cool because all the kids were jealous and wrote messages on it? Was it the tree where you carved someone’s initials? Is it the tree where you buried your grandfather’s ashes, a memory you’ll never forget?
David (40:26-40:43):
The story of humanity begins with the tree. I instantly thought of Eden. What is it about trees that gives them this sense of the tree of life? There’s a mysticism and possibility. What makes trees so generative and filled with life?
Anne (40:44-41:15):
You could make a case that the tree embodies everything about life. Birds, for instance, are more complicated. I’ve had a couple of books with the word “bird” in them: Imperfect Birds and Bird by Bird. I’ve written that if birdsong were the only proof of an alternate or deeper, richer reality, it would be enough for me. But birds are esoteric; they’re quite trippy.
David (41:16-41:17):
People equate them to dinosaurs.
Anne (41:17-42:05):
Well, birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. But a tree is a tree of life. It encompasses the individual branch and the individual apple. We’ve also learned that it’s a vast network of communication. If one tree is sickly, another, with its root structure, can provide it with vitamins and food. They do this because it’s all part of a larger system.
That level of interconnectedness isn’t always the human experience, unless we consciously choose to embrace it. But that’s what the tree represents. I truly believe that if you write down “There was a tree,” you could write for days.
David (42:06-42:08):
What was the other writing prompt you were going to talk about?
Anne (42:08-42:48):
Abigail Thomas, who wrote a book on memoir and another called Still Life at Eighty, gave me a few great prompts. One was: “Write down ten things you’ve forgotten. Then, write ten more.”
Another is: “Tell me ten things you remember.” For example, I remember the smell of cookies in my grandmother’s kitchen. She wasn’t a good cook, but those cookies smelled like love, almond, and vanilla. It was clear my grandmother genuinely wanted me to feel cherished and loved in her funky little kitchen.
David (42:49-43:01):
I remember one grandmother used to put capers on everything; she was a decent cook. My other grandmother grew up during the Great Depression and would serve us food with mold when we visited her place.
Anne (43:02-46:57):
Tell me something that you wish you hadn’t said. Oh, God. I don’t even want to say some of the things I wish I hadn’t said here, but because I have a public life, some of the things I’ve said have haunted me. Some have gotten me canceled from speaking engagements. Some things I’ve said to people have wounded them.
Some of the things I said to my child, I uttered in desperation, at the end of my rope. I want to say that I’m forgiven. My son was a meth user, an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the sober community of San Francisco, he’s now 14 years clean and sober. But there were things I said during those bad years that I can’t believe came out of my mouth.
Every parent has said things they swore they would never say. They heard their own parents say them and vowed never to repeat them once they became parents themselves, yet they inevitably do.
Let’s go back to writer’s block. I suddenly remember giving a useful talk at WritingRoom.com where I shared a couple of hacks.
One hack is to skip ahead. Say you’re on page 37 of your book and you’re blocked—like Isabel Allende was, trying to gather material for the “rag bag guy,” that little Dr. Seuss character, and it’s just not happening. Skip ahead. Move on.
You don’t know what happens now. Your character is face-to-face with someone who hates them, and they’re in a broken elevator. You have no clue what happens next. Skip ahead to page 50, where they’re getting off the elevator. Perhaps there’s been a slight shift in the planes of the earth. There’s a difference in their faces, a difference in their eyes. They’re not shut down, not glaring. They’ve left the realm of glaring.
So you shift ahead from page 37. Maybe you just shift ahead to page 41. You don’t know how they get there, but you know they end up walking off and bump against each other. It’s impossible to have imagined this on page 37: people who hate each other in a broken elevator stepping off four, five, six, or 20 pages later and bumping shoulders. How do they get there? I don’t know.
My husband uses an amazing tool with his clients: he encourages them to say, “I don’t know.” Often, people feel pressured to know exactly what they’ll do next—whether to stay in a job, leave, or make a big life change. He teaches them the freedom of admitting, “I don’t know.”
As a writer, you can apply this. You can say, “Oh, I don’t know.” How do you and I, who have loathed each other for what must be 30 years now, get off this elevator with small smiles on our faces? How do we get there? I don’t know, but I can pick up the story from that point. So, you skip ahead.
The other thing I know about writer’s block is to suddenly introduce a new character. For example, imagine a character steps off the elevator, knows both of the previously feuding individuals, and is astonished to see them standing so close. This character might recall what happened on the blacktop in fifth grade when he chose Caroline over one of them for the ice rink party. You could introduce a character who knew you both, or someone who also hates a person your character was formerly hating when they got on the elevator. The point is, introduce someone new. Shake things up.
David (46:57-46:59):
So, what’s the main point there?
Anne (46:59-48:52):
The point is to introduce something new, something that wasn’t there when you got blocked. It’s like shaking a snow globe. You disrupt the exact frozen landscape that was there before.
There’s a chapter in Bird by Bird about Polaroids. When I was starting out, and when I wrote that book, we used Polaroids. We didn’t have phones or even disposable cameras yet.
Imagine you’ve taken a picture of a scene—say, a Perrier bottle leaning against the couch, and those famous orchids with the green. You snap it, thinking you’re capturing you, but you’re also noticing all this other stuff. That’s where you are before writer’s block. The image is blackish, greenish, slowly developing like a Polaroid.
Then, all of a sudden, you notice a bunch of books under the couch that you hadn’t seen before. You recognize one of them, perhaps even one of my books—you do have them all around here! You want to grab it, but you don’t.
At the point of writer’s block, I thought I was taking a picture of you. But what I’m truly capturing is this coffee table book that belonged to my dad, who has been dead for nearly 50 years.
I suddenly remember sitting with him on the couch, listening to Thelonious Monk playing “Lulu’s Back in Town.” I hadn’t remembered that song, and now I can play it. I’d forgotten that Thelonious Monk’s wife called him “Melonious Thunk.” It all comes back, triggered by something I hadn’t realized was so interesting to me.
David (48:53-49:52):
I told a friend last weekend, “I love to go for a walk and play ‘I Spy.’” He thought I was joshing him, but I told him I do it all the time.
When he asked how to find more writing ideas, I told him to walk down a block and try to observe five things he’d never noticed before. Look at the ornamentation on the lamppost. Look at the way the trash can has some stickers on it. Notice if there’s trash towards the end of the block but not in the middle. Think about why you like the staircases on one house more than another.
Just play “I Spy” and try to notice as many different things as possible. Surprise yourself, or simply observe like you’re with a four-year-old. That process awakens your eyes to the world, and you begin to see things that were always there, just below the register of consciousness.
Anne (49:53-50:21):
My husband once said, and I even started my last book with this line: everything true and beautiful can be discovered on any ten-minute walk.
Whether you’re in Fairfax with all the trees in bloom, or in Washington D.C., where every single cherry tree blossomed for our arrival. Even here, where things are a tiny bit behind, the buds are just starting to show now—you can just see them.
David (50:21-50:24):
Those weren’t there two days ago.
Anne (50:24-50:47):
You can just see the buds, stop, and be blown away. Then you suddenly remember Anaïs Nin’s quote: “The pain of staying in bud was suddenly too much, and you decided to go ahead and see what it was like to bloom.” All at once, the world is happening again for you; it’s moving and revealing itself.
David (50:47-50:53):
Elif Shafak, who was on the show a few months ago, once said the world is pregnant in the spring.
Anne (50:53-50:58):
I love that. It’s beautiful. Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist’s Way.
Anne (50:59-51:04):
She had an assignment in it called “The Artist Date.”
Anne (51:05-52:07):
You took your paper and pen or pencil somewhere, consciously and intentionally. You sat there and captured your thoughts on paper, scribbling them down. I used to teach my grandsons writing workshops, starting in kindergarten, using “poopy first drafts.” I would hand them paper and pencils and have them simply make lines across the page.
I told them, “That’s what writing is—just making lines. But eventually, you’ll learn to write words and descriptions.” Then the aides, the teacher, and I would approach them, listen to their stories, and write them down. But for the first ten minutes, they just scribbled.
That’s the essence of the Artist’s Date. You go to a natural place, a cafe, a cemetery, or a library. You go outside and truly pay attention. Life reveals itself to you, and you get it down on paper. That’s what writing is.
David (52:07-52:08):
Do you have a favorite word?
Anne (52:09-52:25):
I love the words “meadow” and “glade” because they suggest sanctuary and safety. I envision a secret world: a meadow surrounded by trees that you step inside of. Do you have a favorite word?
David (52:25-52:26):
Serendipity.
Anne (52:26-52:27):
Serendipity.
David (52:27-52:39):
I love that word. The energy of serendipity feels embodied in its spelling; it’s almost an onomatopoeia for how the word appears.
Anne (52:39-52:45):
I love that word too. I prefer words like “meadow” and “glade.”
David (52:45-52:55):
Tell me about this idea of squinting. You have an idea forming in your head, and you’re squinting at it as it begins to develop.
Anne (52:56-54:43):
That was another exercise I did with my grandsons’ classes through all those early grades. I would tell them that if they closed their eyes, a movie screen appeared behind their eyelids. They could then look for a memory or an imaginary scene, perhaps involving superheroes or Pokemon.
I’d tell them to see it on that inner screen. When they opened their eyes, they could squint to bring it back into focus, then get it down on paper. If they couldn’t write yet, they could tell one of us, and we would write it for them. Squinting helps you bear down on an idea, capturing it more precisely.
I have a story from the first kindergarten workshop. My grandson was excited to bring his Nana in and show her off. The teacher held up Bird by Bird, and I talked for about half an hour about “poopy first drafts” and the concepts from my books. We then did an exercise with the aides and the teacher.
Afterward, my grandson tugged on my sleeve and, in a kind of mafia voice, said, “Nana, that was terrible.” I asked why. He replied, “You told us you could help us write a book, but you only taught us how to write one page!” I told him, “Honey, that’s all I’ve got, but I can teach you how to write one page.”
It’s like getting into cold water: once you’re in, you might as well splash around for a while. You warm up and are committed, so you might as well go for it and get a little more done than you initially intended.
David (54:44-55:01):
That’s what a book is: just one page after another. It’s like life itself, made up of a day after a day, an hour after an hour. You were talking about movies, and I know you love them.
Anne (55:01-55:01):
I do.
David (55:01-55:03):
How have movies informed your writing?
Anne (55:04-56:47):
Movies have informed my entire life. At least half of what I know about everything, I learned from great movies starting at an early age. Growing up in the 50s, it was all Disney films, mostly animal movies, many of which ended with the mother being killed. As a result, I was a very sensitive and frightened child.
Movies taught me how to frame things: a scene starts somewhere and ends somewhere, moving from point A to point B. They taught me not to bite off more than I can chew, or more than the viewer can follow. Orson Welles said you create a happy or sad movie depending on when you decide to end it.
I learned that you could end a story at a place of hope. Many modern movies end ambivalently, leaving you unsure how characters will continue after what they’ve been through. However, their togetherness is often enough to convey that they’re connected and will be okay for now, which is all any of us ever truly have.
Movies, and the choices directors make about what they show and what they don’t show, are powerful. It’s like Miles Davis saying, “Write about the space between the notes.” The choices directors make are profound. Watching great movies, even those from a hundred years ago, would provide any aspiring writer with all the information they need.
David (56:48-56:53):
Talk to me about that Miles Davis quote. What does that mean to you? That’s not clear to me.
Anne (56:54-57:56):
We are a very talky species, constantly trying to capture the meaning of life—what has been most important and impressive to us. Yet, spiritually, silence is where it all happens. We strive to capture that silence in words.
With a few carefully chosen words, we can capture a moment’s momentousness. We can convey years of aging by describing how an old dog’s muzzle or a narrator’s hair has gone gray. We capture the momentousness of simply being alive in quietness, in the spaces between the notes we hear.
David (57:56-58:09):
Sports announcing is similar. I was watching the World Baseball Classic recently. Venezuela, an underdog, won, and the announcer simply said, “The best in the world.”
David (58:10-58:35):
Then, there was complete silence from the announcers for the next two minutes as the crowd cheered. The ambient noise of the moment spoke for itself. I think of many of my favorite moments in sports announcing; they are very similar: three, four, or five words, then ambient noise, then silence.
Anne (58:37-1:00:20):
In great novels, something often happens that stops you cold. You think, “Oh, no.” Take Middlemarch by George Eliot, which I consider the greatest novel ever written. There are so many moments when a character makes a decision, and you pause, thinking, “Oh, no.”
Consider George, who is in love with Mary. He has proposed, and her father has accepted, as was customary then. George has already lost nearly everything. He is a young man full of life, but he keeps betting on horses. Mary’s father has lent him some money to help them get started. George, with a “good idea,” decides to take this money—let’s say it’s a thousand pounds—and go to the racetrack to double it.
You put down the book. You want to shout, “Don’t go to the racetrack!” You almost don’t want to continue reading, yet you hope it might work out this time. There’s a silence where you feel all the longing, all the young man’s hope that he’ll marry his beloved, make a little extra money, and surprise her.
But inside, you’re pleading, “Please, don’t go to the racetrack! Go home, go to Mary, go to the river!” He goes to the racetrack and loses everything. Now what? Neither he nor you knows. The character is lost, and so are you. What will happen next? You must turn the page.
David (1:00:20-1:00:25):
I recently hosted the writer and director of a movie called Train Dreams.
Anne (1:00:26-1:00:28):
I cannot wait to see that movie.
David (1:00:28-1:00:30):
It’s so good. It was recently nominated for Best Picture.
David (1:00:31-1:00:47):
There’s a really important line in that movie. Things are going all right—not great, but not terribly. The narrator says, “Little did he know that he would remember these days as some of the best in his life.”
David (1:00:48-1:01:08):
It’s a really important line because the major event doesn’t happen for another ten or fifteen minutes. But when I heard that line watching the movie for the first time, I sank down in my chair. It was like your gambling story. I said, “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
Anne (1:01:08-1:02:07):
Oh, no. That is the greatest moment in movies and books: when you have to stop for a minute, catch your breath, and genuinely care about the story. You’re pulling for things to sort out.
My husband always says that life tilts toward the good, but it’s in that suspenseful wait that you hold your breath. John Lennon famously said that everything sorts out by the end, and if it hasn’t sorted out, it’s not the end. I live by that; for me, in the modern era, things haven’t sorted out for the good yet, but they will.
My husband adds that while you’re waiting, that’s the thrill of being a reader or a movie watcher—the thrill that everything could suddenly go wrong. Maybe it’s not going to sort out.
David (1:02:08-1:02:12):
How have movies informed the way you tell stories?
Anne (1:02:13-1:05:26):
A movie tells me what I need to know. The director sets up lily pads across the pond for the viewer to land on. I need to know who these people are and how they are together. I need to understand their journey from one point to another; for instance, how they get out of the city and into Newark, where a catastrophe will begin to unfold.
The wonderful short story writer and New Yorker contributor, Alice Adams, a friend of mine, shared a great formula with her writing students. I wrote about it in Bird by Bird. It’s A, B, D, C, E, and I believe this is the formula a director might also use.
A is for action. Something significant must happen early on, whether in a movie or a book, within the first few pages. For example, if we’re all together in a small studio in the West Village, we immediately wonder: Who are these people? Why are we here? Are we of any interest at all?
B is for the background. This explains why we are together, outlining what we hoped would happen today. A director reveals this through flashbacks or by characters reminding each other of past events.
D is for development. The story begins to unfold. We hear a knock downstairs, though no one is expected. We were supposed to have this time together, but things start developing. These developments are the lily pads we land on. I hear footsteps on the stairs—they don’t sound like yours, they’re high heels, a clunkier sound. I don’t recognize it, and I’m scared. My first reaction is to hide.
C is for the climax. Events come to a head upstairs, outside the bathroom door. It’s not Jack Nicholson from The Shining with a hatchet, but something significant is happening. It’s where all the minor chords played so far crash into one another, like the cymbal in a symphony orchestra.
The climax often involves a “killing” of some sort. This doesn’t necessarily mean the death of a character, but perhaps the death of an illusion that has kept characters from fully awakening or reaching their full humanity. It could be the killing of a prejudice, or even the killing of a person—a killing just outside the door, at the top of the stairs.
E is for the ending. This is how I guide my readers—or, in a movie, the viewers—out of the narrative pond we’ve navigated together. We step out together on the last page or in the final moments.
David (1:05:26-1:05:27):
Would you write those out?
Anne (1:05:27-1:05:37):
She told me the A, B, D, C, E formula 40 years ago, and I’ve remembered it ever since. I’ve shared it with every student I’ve ever had because it’s a great formula.
David (1:05:37-1:05:40):
What makes for a good ending?
Anne (1:05:40-1:06:41):
For me, a good ending means I can’t stand for things to end badly for the main character. I truly can’t.
What works is an ending that makes sense. When I look back over the preceding pages, I might realize I should have intuitively seen it coming. Yet, there’s still a hint of surprise that makes me smile and think, “Yes, that’s exactly right. That’s the only thing that could have happened.”
The characters are then poised for their future. I might not know what will happen next, but I’ve loved spending 300 pages with them, night after night. I got to know them, rooted for them, lost confidence, and then regained faith as they made choices and decisions I didn’t know they had in them. They moved on, just like in real life.
David (1:06:41-1:07:39):
When you delve into a story, whether a book or a movie, you surrender to the author, to the artist, implicitly saying, “I trust you.”
A good ending often leaves you feeling that, despite many unexpected twists and turns, it was worth it. You feel glad you invested the time and think, “Thank you for knowing me better than I knew myself.”
However, there are times when I feel betrayed. I use that strong word because I believe it’s warranted. I experience this when a body of work doesn’t honor my heart or emotions, when it doesn’t treat me right. It’s not about avoiding difficult themes; it’s about reaching the end and feeling that the creator knew me better than I knew myself, and I’m glad I trusted them.
Anne (1:07:40-1:09:05):
I often read this passage at the end of my talks about writing and what it means to be a writer. I truly care that people write well.
My hunger for truth and the sheer joy of reading have made good writing my rock and salvation since my parents first read to me. Tonight, when I crawl into bed, a good book will be waiting, and I will get lost and found within its pages. Neil will be there too, also lost in a book, and we will be at peace.
Suddenly, one of us will exclaim, “Listen to this!” We will read a sentence or description to each other and shake our heads in appreciation of its finesse.
You are fully capable of creating good sentences too, with practice, guidance, an editor or writing partner, and dedication to the craft. Trust me on this, but better yet, trust yourself. You’ve got this.
David (1:09:08-1:09:10):
Why did you want to end with that?
Anne (1:09:10-1:10:54):
The most important message in this book is that everyone can become a better writer. It is like learning to do anything, whether that is piano or pickleball.
With piano, you do not start off wanting to botch “The Farmer in the Dell.” You want to play Brahms, but you have to be willing to botch “The Farmer in the Dell” or “The Cheese Stands Alone.” Little by little, you work your way up to botching your favorite Beatles song, like “In My Life.”
It is terrible at first, then it gets better and better. You might then play it for somebody, and they exclaim, “Wow, you did it! That was beautiful!” Then you slowly work your way up through Chopin to whoever.
Writing is just like that. You start off, and it is way, way too long. A lot of it will end up on the cutting room floor. But you are doing it; you are doing it every day. You are a writer now, pursuing the writer’s life, and sitting at the feet of the masters.
You are reading all of the “Writers at Work” series in The Paris Review once a week. You are corresponding with other writers and sharing your work with a partner you have found. They share their work with you, and you help each other improve, tackling slightly harder and harder things.
You are learning to take criticism, while also sticking to the fact that it is your work and you are its final arbiter. You are doing it, just like the Nike ad says: “Just do it.”
David (1:10:55-1:10:56):
You stop not writing.
Anne (1:10:56-1:10:57):
You stop not writing.
David (1:10:58-1:11:00):
How did you deal with criticism throughout your life?
Anne (1:11:00-1:11:38):
I hate criticism. I am so in the wrong business. It has always hurt me.
My first reviews were for Hard Laughter, a novel I wrote about my father’s illness. The first reviews, from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, arrived by mail from my agent in the 1980s. They were terrible reviews. Luckily, I was still drinking at the time.
Both reviews stated that whatever meager charms the book possessed were harmed by the writer’s show-off overkill. That will...
David (1:11:38-1:11:39):
...make you tip the bottle.
Anne (1:11:39-1:13:34):
That made me tip the bottle, and the criticism rang through my mind. After that, I stopped doing the “show-off overkill” of trying to be funny, and I started editing myself in a much different way.
I have been criticized for every book. This, Good Writing, is my 21st book. Now, there are hardly any reviews, so you mostly worry about neglect rather than bad reviews. Criticism is very hard for me to take.
Neil and I have been editing each other for ten years, and our policy is to edit using a “sandwich” form. This means you approach the other person and say, “I love this! This is going to be great.” Then you might say, “I do not think your lead works; the first couple of paragraphs actually do not work. But at the very bottom of page one, where that paragraph starts, that is where you hook me in.”
Or, “I do not think the ending works. All endings are way before the ending you have presented.” For an essay, the real ending might be a page and a half earlier. For a book, it could be thirteen pages earlier.
Sometimes, however, Neil has been in a hurry and started immediately with what was wrong and what I needed to fix. Once or twice I have cried. He will then say, “Oh, I am so sorry. I really love it; it is just that the beginning is so confused. I truly think you are just clearing your throat. Take out those first two paragraphs. Trust me.”
Criticism hurts a little bit. But one of the rules in good writing is to trust good editors. Worship good editors and a good writing partner because they save you from yourself, from your blind spots, and from your weird little habits that you think are charming but actually are not.
David (1:13:35-1:13:47):
Have there been times when you have overreacted to criticism? When a critic came in, they said something, and you thought, “Oh, my goodness, they are right!” Only to find that you had actually lost your sense of self in the process?
Anne (1:13:47-1:13:48):
Oh, yeah.
David (1:13:48-1:13:57):
And then you had to integrate that criticism into your craft to say, “People will criticize me for that, but that is who I am. That is who I want to be.”
Anne (1:13:57-1:14:34):
Absolutely. I could give you twenty examples of devastatingly important book reviews.
For instance, I received one not quite ten years ago for a book—it might have been Hallelujah, which covered either hope or mercy. It was a collection of very human and funny essays on spirituality, widely loved and a huge bestseller. The reviewer in The Chicago Tribune said the book made her feel like she was in the backyard with one of the Kardashians. Ooh.
David (1:14:35-1:14:37):
Huh. That is strange.
Anne (1:14:37-1:15:14):
I wanted to write back, but you do not get to do that. No one had ever heard of her, nor were they likely to. I could not, because you do not get to respond to reviews.
However, that made me pause. I realized the way I write is the way I want to write. You can tell by what I am publishing that by the time I have written something, it has gone through so many washes: three or four drafts from me. Then the editorial response, me making those changes, going back to the editor, and doing another round of edits.
David (1:15:14-1:15:16):
Do you ever feel like the writing gets over-edited?
Anne (1:15:17-1:16:27):
I am desperately grateful for my editors. I have a great editor, and then it goes to a copy editor. Sometimes a copy editor can have tiny control issues, marking things unnecessarily.
For example, in my second novel, Jones, which takes place at a broken-down dive cafe on the Petaluma River, two teenagers at the cash register say, “I’m gonna have to pay you, like, in total dimes.” I had heard that line and quickly scribbled it down. I actually asked them to wait a second so I could write it.
It’s a beautiful line, with a rhythm and blues feel: “I’m gonna have to pay you, like, in total dimes.” The copy editor read it, crossed it out, and changed it to, “I’m going to pay you totally in dimes.” I had to go back and insist on the original: “I’m gonna have to pay you, like, in total dimes.” Despite such instances, I am desperately grateful for my editors.
David (1:16:29-1:16:38):
You use the word “reverence” a lot. We discussed “wow” earlier, but can you explain why you use the word “reverence” so often?
Anne (1:16:38-1:17:43):
Reverence is about agreeing to be awakened, to stop hitting the snooze button, and to constantly ask yourself: “How alive am I willing to be?” It hurts to be fully alive. It means taking off some of your armor, being willing to be real and human with people, which you were certainly not raised to be.
You were raised to be impressive, to do well, and to gain the approval of anyone with power or influence, to be graded and moved up the ranks. To agree to be fully reverent, to be fully alive, means stepping into the realm of reverence — of breath, of the moment, of genuine being, both your own and the world’s.
As you quoted the other writer, the world is “pregnant” right now, signifying new life. We’ve gone through the death of winter. Now we are back. I can metaphorically take off some of these heavy clothes and fully be here.
David (1:17:44-1:17:45):
I’m thinking of the word porous.
Anne (1:17:45-1:17:49):
We’re going to be porous. We’re going to be permeable. We’re going to take off the armor.
David (1:17:50-1:17:56):
The key point of what you were saying is a willingness to be hurt.
Anne (1:17:57-1:18:06):
A willingness to be hurt in the interest of the great gift of being here, as fully alive and as fully human as we can manage.
David (1:18:06-1:18:10):
Thank you, Annie.
Anne (1:18:10-1:18:11):
Thank you so much.
