How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
But I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward. (Introduction.44)
Lamott seems to think that hope will be rewarded, not necessarily with fame or money, but with finding out that you really do love to write. Does anything you're currently writing make you feel this way? What do you think it would take for you to feel this way about writing? Or do you feel this way about something else? Not everyone has to be a writer; even Anne Lamott says so. Maybe this is how you feel about playing a sport, or playing an instrument, or making paintings, or going on hikes. All of those things are forms of art, each in their own way.
Quote #8
Don't underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor. (29.30)
Lamott often talks about the characters or material of a book being somehow inside the writer, waiting to be given shape in a book. It's as though the characters and material develop their own power and their own personalities. It sounds like writers end up having a conversation with their material, as though it can talk back. There's that element of "truth" again.
Quote #9
And who knows? Maybe what you've written will help others, will be a small part of the solution. You don't even have to know how or in what way, but if you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. (29.31)
The lighthouse is a great image for Lamott to use here. If you've put your own experience on paper honestly enough, it's likely someone else will share enough of it to be helped or moved by your writing about it. But first you have to build the lighthouse by writing the book.