And publishing? Well, I would beg to differ to the opinions of the author and say to the new writers that getting your work published is a great joy and one should enjoy it as much as they possibly can! Maybe for someone who was born in a household of an established writer and who had an agent even before she wrote anything worth reading writing might feel like a mundane thing and getting it published may feel like a task, but for those writers, including me, who learn the craft on their own and bust their asses trying to write something worthwhile, it means a whole lot more than anyone can ever understand.

It made me feel hopeless and gave me the feels of being stuck in an endless pit because according to Anne Lamott that’s what writing is. I am fully aware that the entire world, for whatever reasons, absolutely adores this book, but if I am being honest, this book made me feel depressed about writing, just the way it did when I first read it. I, as a writer, do understand what she means to convey and get it that writing should not be over-glorified especially to the new writers, but at the same time I also feel that that you simply cannot portray only the negative side of the coin to someone who is new and eager as it would end up only demoralising the reader. I feel that this book is a bit depressing with the author repeatedly highlighting the downside of writing and publishing. So now I’ve read this book twice and after the second read, I’ve dropped another star from my rating. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. 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. 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. Genre: Non-Fiction, Writing Guide, Reference

Bird by bird review