Think you’ve got your head wrapped around Bird by Bird? Put your knowledge to
the test. Good luck — the Stickman is counting on you!
Q. What's a super useful concept that will help you get started writing something, according to Anne Lamott?
Imagining everything in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson
Encyclopedia research
Yoga writing
Short assignments
Q. What kinds of first drafts will help you produce something, in Lamott's view?
Super great amazing first drafts
Mostly okay first drafts
Extremely perfectionist first drafts
Drafts so bad Lamott has to swear to describe them
Q. According to Lamott, what's the relationship between character and plot?
Plot comes from character
Character comes from plot
They're mostly independent of each other
The plots and the characters come from the NYPD, especially if the writer has a bit of a crush on a police officer named Beckett
Q. When Lamott is having trouble figuring out the garden setting in one of her books, what does she do?
Learns to garden
Calls up a nursery and asks them what the garden would be like
Reads every gardening manual at the library cover to cover
Goes to a high school production of Little Shop of Horrors
Q. According to Lamott, do professional writers usually know exactly how their plots will unfold when they first start a book?
Of course—that's why they're professional writers
Mostly, although sometimes they change a few things along the way
Nope, it often takes them months of writing to have any idea what's happening
Yes, because they steal all their plots from Joss Whedon