How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. (1.1)
The stakes sure are high in Lamott's view of writing. Nothing less than understanding human existence hangs in the balance. And that makes sense: one of the reasons we read other people's writing is to find out what they can tell us about ourselves and our own lives.
Quote #8
You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. (1.9)
Lamott knows that writing isn't just about spur-of-the-moment inspiration, though it's nice when that comes. Writing is also about a set of habits that gets your mind working on your project, even if it's working in the background; insight and inspiration sometimes happen when you're not even paying attention. Sometimes you may not feel like sitting down and working like that, but if you do, it'll pay off in the long run.
Quote #9
I also remember a story that I know I've told elsewhere but that over and over helps me to get a grip: thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." (2.5)
Don't lie: you're as bad about procrastinating as we are. Yeah, well, Anne Lamott has some good news: you don't have to write it all at once or do any huge project all at once. You do it bit by bit, bird by bird. It's way less scary that way, and it's also the way real writing and real projects—even the big ones you see only when they're already finished—are actually done.