And a last quote from Anne Lamott, in polishing off her book.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott, was an enjoyable and quick read as far as craft books go. However, here is the thing for me. So far, with craft books, I've realized that mostly they tell you the things you don’t want to hear, the things you know already but had sort of hoped you could bypass or avoid because by reading said craft book you’d learn The Secret that had been kept from you, which allows scores of other writers to breeze their way through book after book after book. No such luck. Anne Lamott reminds writers not to fear the shitty first draft and that it is only by thoroughly knowing your characters that you can figure out any of the rest of it: plot, dialogue, structure, POV, setting, etc. That you must write your way through a draft, then rewrite and reach the end again, only to realize you’ve mistaken one character all along and so now must go back and rewrite again. And again, ad nauseam. And she reminds us of all of this gently and with wonderfully dark humor.

There were a few pieces of advice that stuck with me, though:

* When you get overwhelmed by your project, simplify. Write what you could see through a one-inch picture frame. Take it frame by frame, bird by bird, and eventually you'll reach an end to it.

* Following up on this photography metaphor, write as if you inspired by a Poloroid picture you'd just taken. Write what you can see, then see how the picture (and your writing) changes as the picture continues to develop.

* When having plot trouble, go back to your characters. When having terminal plot trouble, try Alice Adams’s ABDCE: Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending. (I'm not terribly convinced this would work for me, but hey if I get desperate I may try.)

* Each day try rereading the material you wrote in your last writing session, then move forward from there.

* When you lack a body of information, contact people that do have it. Ask them to tell you everything they know. They'll love it.

* Shoot for, at least, 300 words a day.

And, lastly, one final quote:

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won’t really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we’ll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be” (231).

--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.