Bird by Bird
Advice about good writing happens to be very much like advice about good life.
When I was reading "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" by Anne Lamott, it struck me how much the advice on writing can apply to someone in a career transition, someone trying to write a new chapter of her/his life.
To be a better writer, ou have to write regularly, write more. In the beginning you may force yourself to write, but gradually the act of writing may turn out to be its own reward. This echoes a bias for action that is key when we look to change our career. We need to act our way into it.
The first big idea of this book is the idea of short assignments. The big goal can either be too vague or too daunting. You have to act in short assignments, go "bird by bird", and finish them. Same goes for career change, we act our way into our new career not in one big leap, but in small steps.
The second big idea of this book is shitty first drafts. You need to start with something - anything - and accept that the first drafts of anything are shitty. Be kind to yourself, accept that it will be messy, that there will be false starts. Perfectionism is your enemy, not your friend. We have to experiment and accept that it will not going to turn perfect. But every experiment will teach us something, teach us what we are not and what we are.
Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on. A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost. For a career change, we need to get really curious about the world.
Having bad days, feeling stuck and feeling jealous are part of the process. This is true for writing, this is true for life.
When you don’t know what to do, when you don’t know whether your character would do this or that, you get quiet and try to hear that still small voice inside. It will tell you what to do.
Radio KFKD, or K-Fucked. If you are not careful, station KFKD will play in your head twenty-four hours a day, nonstop, in stereo. Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists of all the things one doesn’t do well, of all the mistakes one has made today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that everything that one touches turns to shit, that one doesn’t do relationships well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that one has no talent or insight, and on and on and on. The best way to get quiet, other than the combination of extensive therapy, Prozac, and a lobotomy, is first to notice that the station is on.
Living your life as if you're dying. The truth is we are all terminal on this bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence. Time is so full for people who are dying in a conscious way, full in the way that life is for children.