The Writing Life

by Annie Dillard

From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life.

In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood—illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that characterize the existence of a writer. A moving account of Dillard’s own experiences while writing her works, The Writing Life offers deep insight into one of the most mysterious professions.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Crafts, Biography, Art

111 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brief yet intense essay on the art, or as Dillard would say, the burden of writing that will delight readers and aspiring writers alike.
Writing is a way of life, and Dillard’s relationship with words is, to say the least, controversial.
Her lucid ponderings on the obsessive nature of those who devote their lives to squeeze the world out into sentences, limited by expression and linguistic patterns, are as petrifying as they are eye-opening.
Far from the romantic idea of a genius struck by sudden inspiration, incessantly scribbling away in otherworldly vision and transforming it into polished and clearly defined paragraphs, Dillard describes the endless struggle the writer has to undergo to put down a handful of fragmented sentences per day. The mundane is the worst enemy: constant battles against distraction, physical needs, the vertigo of a blank page or the looming weight of others’ expectations; and more philosophical dilemmas on the impossibility to capture the untainted beauty of the world of ideas into the prison of form and restrictive words, set the orbit to Dillard’s limitless universe.

And yet. And yet. Dillard uses the pen as a magician would use his wand and puts the reader under the irresistible spell of her spiritual writing. Her personal anecdotes and exquisite meditations on the implications of building one’s life around literature reminded me of great masters such as Thoreau, Julian Barnes and Rebecca Solnit, who blend autobiography with prose poetry of the finest quality.
Beauty and eloquence need not be at odds; if you think they are, please pick this short essay and be proven wrong by Dillard’s magic. Fireworks for the blind.

“I lived on the beach with one foot in fatal salt water and one foot on a billion of grains of sand. The brink of the infinite there was too like writing’s solitude. Each sentence hung over an abyssal ocean or sky which held all possibilities, as well as the possibility of nothing.”

[Justin Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful essays on writing. It’s not a how-to guide, but more of a metaphorical deglamorization of what it means to be a writer. The gist is that writing is agonizing work and those who are sane should probably avoid it.

In her most dramatic moment, Dillard compares being a writer to being a stunt pilot. Stunt pilots write poetry in the sky with their loops and spins. The audience is amazed by this beauty and imagines how wonderful it must feel. In the cockpit, however, the pilot is experiencing bursting headaches and extreme pain from the various pull-and-tug of gravity. To top it off, he can’t even see the art he’s creating.

While I suspect this book will scare off some would-be writers (as is its intent) those of us familiar with the headaches and agony of creating sentences will probably find glorious inspiration in its pages. Writing is not glamorous and it’s not too easy. It takes a long time and is a lot of work. I suspect most of us wonder if maybe we are crazy for doing it. Dillard confirms that we are indeed crazy, but there is great pleasure in hearing this from another insane person. She is someone who both understands the struggle of writing and the inability to stop.

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Writing Life is a short book where Annie Dillard recounts, in elegant prose, a few autobiographical anecdotes. And, since she is a writer, some of these reminiscences incidentally or metaphorically provide insights about her craft: writing as mining, sailing, painting, chopping wood or aerobatics; writing like an inchworm or like a strand of fibreoptic… This book abounds in such analogies.

Although ironic, Annie Dillard’s meditations are sometimes a bit harsh and disheartening: “Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?” On other occasions, however, she offers powerful, humorous and comforting bits of wisdom on the writing trade:

Out of a human population on earth of 4.5 billion, perhaps 20 people can write a serious book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in barrels, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms. […] These truths comfort the anguished. They do not mean, by any means, that faster-written books are worse books. They just mean that most writers might well stop berating themselves for writing at a normal, slow pace.

So much for Stephen King or Michael Crichton’s Stakhanovist daily word counts.

[Malbadeen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not, nor do I aspire to live "The Writing Life" but I have recently found myself in a writing class by virtue of necessity for my degree and I have been horrified by the enormity of the task of writing something/anything without feeling like a complete fool!
I came across this book at a used store and picked it up as my brother has been trying to get me to read Dillard for awhile.
I immediately loved it for her brutal words of reality. After sitting in the class were I have to listen to a circle of people nod their heads in affirmation at the absolutely unoriginal crap that is being churned out week after week and wondering if I'm the only one that wants to scream "Are you serious?!, did you just end your story with the line 'at least I'm not alone'" or wondering if it should be legal to let someone insert the phrase "I'd have to draw you a picture" at any point, in any story, under any circumstances, and how about using the phrase "crazy Jim", wouldn't it be kinder in the end to tell this student that saying"Crazy Jim" makes him sound like "lame-o writer"?
(does anybody but me notice that I'm avoiding sharing any of the horrendous drivel that I've put to paper? hee-hee. It's my review people, I'll do whatever I damn well please)
And then there is the soul crushing reality that there EVERYTHING has already been said!

what's this? oh another story about breaking up? how refreshing.
what's that you say? when you were in nature you felt alive? hmmm, there's a fresh perspective.
and shh, shh, I want to hear this: what truth, what inspiration. to think, children have innocence that adults have lost - I hadn't considered that.

So I sit there in that class and I try to appreciate that my reaction to all of this writing I'm hearing is a harsh and unwarranted, critique on a group of people that are sincerely trying to do something they enjoy or feel compelled to do for whatever reason. I smile, I affirm, I point out the things I liked (ya, there are some things I like) and I read my stories as fast as humanly possibly and try to avoid follow-up conversation at all costs.
but then I go home and I pick up this little book (111 pages) and I read it, first quietly then I notice I'm reading it aloud, then I'm laughing and shouting "yes"!

I think I fell in love with the book on page 11 when she talks about the meaningless task of writing compared to shoe sales. A thought she ends with, "If you believed Paradise Lost to be excellent, would you buy it? why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?"

YES!

not to dork out or anything, but seriously - couldn't you pretty much say that about anything you do in life? and the wondering why we do as we do it - that's good but the doing it is better.
So I guess the syrupy, sweet moral of my story is that this book helped me to appreciate my classmates, the writing process, and the amusing trivialities that make our lives what they are.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tunnel through. Stretch the line to the limits of the possible. It will be hard, and it will be a torment, but that is the writing life.

It’s easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren’t writers, and very little harm comes to them.
—Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot

The writing life is tough and you will often hate it, but choose it if no other life will make sense.

A day spent reading/writing, cooped up in this silent struggle, while life passes you by might not be considered by many as a good day, but a life spent reading and writing - that will be a good life.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a love/hate thing with this book. On the one hand, it's a brilliant poetic evocation of the creative process. On the other, the process is so romanticized and the examples exalt such a rarified form of extreme self-sacrifice that I half-suspect Dillard is trying to discourage and/or sabotage future generations. It's a five star meal with a dash of arsenic. Approach with caution.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books don't have an ending.
What they have to say will linger on and surround you like a mental landscape. Annie Dillard's impassioned plea for the writing life is as hypnotic as it is tangible. She will take you to writing desks in remote cabins and isolated studies (keep the world out, as much as you can) to evoke the various stages of writing (elation, excitement, despair, immobility, doubt). Time will slow down and expand in electrified sentences that you will want to highlight and write down, word for word, in your own writing notebooks. Her uses of metaphor will thrill you to bits and stretch your understanding of the craft in ways that you had never thought about before. She will become a little ghost sitting on your shoulder as you toil away on the page, so haunting are her lines.
Some books are written to be reread.
Line by line, paragraph by paragraph, Annie Dillard distills the elements that make writing as alive, elemental and necessary as it can be.
A literary call to arms.

[Lisa Reads & Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Annie Dillard wrote a brutally honest description of her relationship and struggles with the process of writing. Instead of the usual advice about showing, not telling, etc that I see etched inside my eyelids, as I read The Writing Life, I was compelled to copy its poetic quotes on note cards that I'll use as bookmarks.

I expect gems from this work will inspire and educate me as I stumble across them in days to come—quotes, such as the content of a note from Michelangelo to his apprentice, "Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and do not waste time." And, “Throw out the beginning; the book begins in what you thought was the middle. It can take years and heartbreak to see that...”

Annie Dillard defines an important point as follows: "The writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? and, Can I do it? Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles... He writes it in spite of that. He finds ways to minimize the difficulty; he strengthens other virtues; he cantilevers the whole narrative out into thin air, and it holds. And if it can be done, then he can do it, and only he. For there is nothing in the material for this book that suggests to anyone but him alone its possibilities for meaning and feeling.” In an effort to "minimize the difficulty" motivates me to sit in writing seminars and read how-to writing books.

Other notes:

- The tendency and pressure upon writers these days is to churn out several books per year. Dillard writes the putting a book together is difficult and complex and should engage all the writer's intelligence. Freedom as a writer is not “freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip.” While I'd like to complete one book per year, Dillard believes that writing a book, full time, takes between two and ten years.

- I tend to rewrite over and over as I write. Dillard advises the opposite: “The reason not to perfect a work as it progresses is that original work fashions a form the true shape of which it discovers only as it proceeds, so the early strokes are useless, however fine their sheen."

- And finally, these words of warning: "The writer is careful of what he read, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know."

[Ammara Abid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first book by Annie Dillard and it didn't disappoint me.

Brilliant book, beautiful excerpts with many examples corelating with
how to write
why to write
what urge you to write,
emphasizing the importance of words. The whole book was written in monotonous tone which is perfectly fine with the short book like this but the last chapter didn't hit me infact I get bored while reading. Otherwise the book is epic.

WHEN YOU WRITE, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know.
The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength: that page will teach you to write.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a writer with only one published novel I am always looking to learn more about the writing life, looking to hone my skills, to improve. I had hoped to glean some rare look into how to write skilfully from Dillard's writing. This 111 page book took me three days to read (normally I would have finished in 30 minutes) however I wanted to absorb each gem of knowledge, and so kept reading intently, taking breaks hoping it would get better the next time I picked it up. Most writers seem to spend an inordinate amount of time doing anything to avoid writing Dillard seemed to spend most of her time avoiding writing about writing, and if that was not annoying enough _ I wanted the good stuff - the time she did spend on the writing life was so depressing that if I was reading this book in hopes of becoming a writer I'd have probably gone a slit my wrists. What a complete waste of time this book was.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, quick 70-pager (at least in the version I read) that really reads like an extension of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek with its tone and ample use of quotes and anecdotes. The only difference, really, is that this work focuses more (and at times less) on writing.

A few things of interest: Dillard has little use for using brand names in your writing, so I guess she's of the belief that it spoils your chances for classic status when you embed stuff that is sure to become dated. She also espouses a variation of the "you are what you eat" philosophy by saying your writing is what you read (don't I wish!). If you want to be a novelist, you read novels for the sheer joy of it. If you want to be a poet, you read poems because you can't help yourself. Otherwise, you are (my words) a poser, and for some reason, the writer pose is one a certain breed of person can't help but strike.

I'll leave you with some Dillard-style advice:

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. This is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did, from a desk in Paris. Willa Cather wrote her prairie novels in New York City; Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in Hartford, Connecticut. Recently, scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.

Which is all well and good except Mark Twain actually wrote HF in Elmira, NY, at his wife Livy's parents' place. They were filthy rich (coal = source of the filth) and had an outdoor cabin at the edge of a field overlooking woods where Clemens escaped to write every day.

Speaking of, Dillard also insists you avoid a view. Situate your desk to look at walls or, if a window is nearby, may it look over ugly roof lines. The view has to be mental, in other words, so have at it. Every day. And good luck. The life of a (true) artist is neither simple nor swift.

Amen.

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did several things wrong as a reader with this book. I picked this one up before reading anything else by Annie Dillard, when I had intended to start with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but that one’s in hardback format and reading actual books these days is... doesn’t happen much. Must fix that.

I also picked up the audiobook with a narrator who seemed all wrong for it. She sounded too young and too... more like someone who might read fantasy or science fiction or crime fiction.

I picked it up because it’s short, because sometimes I fall into the trap of wanting to stay on top of my reading numbers, mostly because there’s so many books I want to read and there’s only so much time, as we know. Social media is taking up too much of it.

I should probably mention the writing was of course excellent, but what Dillard stresses throughout, is that writing is a miserable, demanding and unrewarding craft while a writer actually sits down to do the work. She talked about this is many ways. Not what I expected from a book on the subject, but honest, sure enough.

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every paragraph is stunning, and I especially like the previous owner's occasional marginalia in my hardback copy.

On page 14, Dillard writes: "Flaubert wrote steadily, with only the usual, appalling, strains. For twenty-five years he finished a big book every five to seven years. My guess is that full-time writers average a book every five years; seventy-three usable pages a year, or a usable fifth of a page a day. The years that biographers and other nonfiction writers spend amassing and mastering materials are well matched by the years novelists and short-story writers spend fabricating solid worlds that answer to immaterial truths. On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must throw them away."

To which the previous owner exclaims, incredulous, "? Absurd—writers write much more," and then, a few lines down, reasons, "Maybe without computer?"

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful (I know that's an easy word to use, but it's never been more appropriate than here) series of essays on and around writing. Some useful analogies. The one about drawing an exact replica of the view from the window on a screen erected to obscure it (in a room in which the author is meant to be writing) is perfect; as is the one about chopping wood ("There is another way of saying this. Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block."). Couldn't help but compare these fairly cossetted life-lessons with those of Ann Quin trying to block out her carping landlady while yammering out prose in an oppressive frenzy, but that didn't seriously detract.

'I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.

This tender relationship can change in a twinkling. If you skip a visit or two, a work in progress will turn on you. A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight. It is barely domesticated, a mustang on which you one day fastened a halter, but which now you cannot catch. It is a lion you cage in your study.

As the work grows, it gets harder to control; it is a lion growing in strength. You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it. If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to open the door to its room. You enter its room with bravura, holding a chair at the thing and shouting, “Simba!”'

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is short - just over one hundred pages in hardcover - and easy to read. If you read my five status updates, you will see quotes from the book. The book is full of quotable quotes that are often entertaining and enlightening. I think Annie Dillard is a great writer. My one fault with The Writing Life is that it is despairingly certain that being a good writer is neigh unto impossible. This seems to me to be simply untrue. Now you may not write an award winning novel but if you read reviews on Goodreads, you know that there are some pretty good writers here. You may not be able to make a living with your words but you sure can enjoy creating sentences and paragraphs.

Maybe this is simply a memior by Annie telling what being a writer is like for her. It is not a how to book, that is for sure. Because the message is "Write your butt off and prepare to fail!" I would just say, "Don't quit your day job but if you enjoy writing remember that there are places like Goodreads and blog sites where you can be published rather than punished." Have a good time writing and have a good time reading this book while you are at it.

[el · Rating 5 out of 5]

one gets the sense that annie dillard writes not to impart wisdom but to run circles around the rest of us—and somehow, incidentally, along the way, her outlook on life (at once cynical and joyfully observant) shines through with undeniable, hard-won truth. (this is just the matter of being that skilled.)

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it gets better.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the book that I hoped. In "How to Write an Autobiographical Novel," I loved the way Alexander Chee described his writing lessons at Wesleyan with Annie Dillard. But I preferred his description of her teaching to her actual writing. Weird. I blame myself for the mismatch. Dillard is writing here about the process of writing, what a writer's life is like. And she does it well. It just didn't move me.

[Ky · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few (and I mean a few) worthwhile insights on the craft, but dry, dry, dry. Self absorbed and precious too, even conceded. She leaves out much of what the reader entering this book will want from it and includes most of what they will not.

Then you have deal-breakers such as the following: "It should surprise no one that the life of the writer--such as it is--is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation. Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author's childhood. A writer's childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience."

...Really?

Ask yourself: how many writers, like Dillard, are privileged enough to be able to winter in seaside cabins in order to devote all their time to writing? How many writers, working in ANY genre, do not honour the real world as an irreplaceable and primary source, regardless how much or not they intend to reflect it? This is just one example of Dillard at her least self-scrutinizing and, for that fact, least wise. (Wisdom ostensibly being the book's offering.)

For a work whose focus boomerangs so frequently back to a writer's insecurities and uncertainties, "The Writing Life" is remarkably sure of itself, seemingly unaware that it's a shining example of why writers need such character flaws in the first place.

[Bkwmlee · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my goals this year is to continue my quest to read as many books about the craft of writing as I can. This month, I decided to pick up Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard’s famed book of essays on the craft, The Writing Life , which I had heard many good things about.

Indeed, when I started the book, it was actually very engaging and I found myself highlighting many insights that resonated with me. Unfortunately though, as the book progressed, it started to become less and less accessible to me. Dillard’s prose is elegant and lyrical and yes, her metaphorical descriptions of things are beautifully rendered — but there was too much of it, in my opinion, to the point that it felt overwhelming, and after awhile, it became harder and harder to pay attention. My mind started to wander and I ended up having to re-read things several times — putting the book down and picking it back up a few days later did help, but not by much. Luckily, the book was very short (a tad over 100 pages), so I was able to push through and finish it (though it took me nearly a week to do so, which bothered me a bit).

Overall, I think this book just wasn’t for me, especially at this moment in my life. While I appreciated the insights it provided (I did write down a few things that were helpful and that I definitely want to remember), it came across a little too highbrow and abstract for me in some places — which is why I decided to go with a median rating of 3 stars. Perhaps if I were to revisit this book at a later time, when my journey as a writer is more mature, I will have a better appreciation for it.

[Chels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this while being a writer is like getting kicked in the teeth repeatedly. Dillard obliterates your ego, ("Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?") the desire to speed up the process, ("Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a serious book in a year. Some people can lift cars, too.") and pokes fun at the strange, often antagonistic relationship writers have with their work. ("I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.")

I love, love, love this so much. I've been telling people that writing is making me boring, and Dillard, a meticulous writer who couldn't be boring if she tried, agrees. Writing is tedious and difficult and lonely and is often a conversation killer, but because of a strange compulsion I do it anyway. What a gift, to have someone make these feelings compelling.

[Mary-ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t a fan of this brief book on writing.

Annie Dillard might be a successful writer herself, but this book wasn’t encouraging to would-be writers who are likely to be the readers of this book. She made it feel like writing was almost impossible to do well.

She had some interesting metaphors for various aspects of writing but they we’re so drawn out it seemed to take forever for Dillard to get to the point. I wasn’t looking to be impressed by her writing, which seemed to be her focus, I actually wanted to understand her insights into the writing process. While she eventually made some good points, there wasn’t anything new here. It felt like she had relatively little to say and was massively padding the text with unnecessary description. It made me think it would have worked better as a much shorter personal essay or a Paris Review article.

I’m not sure I would recommend this book. Stephen King and Dorothea Brande have more helpful and interesting books on the writing life.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think if I had read this book out of curiosity, and not in the middle of a class where I am writing and having to revise that writing (the hardest part for me), I may not have rated it so highly. But every word Annie Dillard includes in here is important. Some stories are not immediately apparent. Why am I reading about chopping wood, skipping fireworks, and alligators? She always brings it back around to the discipline of writing, a discipline that I don't really have... yet (?).

I think anyone who writes or dreams of writing should read this book.

"You must demolish the work and start over. You can save some of the sentences, like bricks. It will be a miracle if you can save some of the paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves or hard-won. You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now. (Are you a woman, or a mouse?)"

"On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of days he concludes he must throw them away."

"Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading - that is a good life."

"I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend... I hold its hand and hope it will get better."

"A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight... You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it."

"You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment."

"Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art. Do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength."

Yes ma'am. I will try.

[Dona's Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know what to say about this book. I know why they gave Annie Dillard the Pulitzer though. Her syntax is like a mix of honey and glue and I love getting stuck in her predicates.

Goodreads says I have read this book twice, and I have, read it through twice. But this is one of the books I read when I have writer's block. And because of the nature of my disability's expression, I am often blocked. I am a blockhead who plays with blocks in a block-shaped world. My opportunities to write come from water splitting through the wood, and sometimes what breaks the grain is a book. Like this one. And so I read The Writing Life endlessly, and have read it countless times. Sometimes I read only five pages, or sometimes I read it all the way up until Annie moves into her shed in the cold woods in the Pacific Northwest. Until I look with her at that bed in the corner and it reminds me, not her, of something, and that something pulls me to my desk every single time we reach the shed.

And sometimes I rub her cover and put the book back on the shelf, because I know I could not bear her sticky sentences. I would work to avoid it at all costs, and so I drag myself to the desk.

Annie Dillard's The Writing Life isn't a magical book, nor does it turn me into a psychologically compromised woman in its presence. It is a powerful text, capable of exerting powerful influence over those who read it. Especially those readers who happen to be creatives. Especially if those creatives happen to struggle with block or other challenges of process. It's a very short text, so if you hate it, the good news is, you won't have to hate it for very long.

Everyone stay safe and don't rub your eyes with your sleeves!

[Ju$tin · Rating 1 out of 5]

annie dillard? more like annie dullard.





two big thumbs down.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for a course and my professor said that some people will love Annie Dillard, while others will hate her. I am of the latter camp.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from reading this book. Maybe some kind of interesting wisdom about writing? What I got, though, was a highly pretentious piece of work that read like a self-help book. It spoke about a bunch of things but the sum of the message was basically empty.
Dillard seems to assume that all writers can live her lifestyle of seclusion while writing while subsisting on a diet of coffee and cigarettes and god knows what else.
Further, she adds to this already sleep-inducing series of metaphors about writing with her own travels and some people she's met. She goes on one particularly extensive scene where she talks to a friend of hers who paints. When she asks him how he's doing with his work, he tells a long story that ultimately leads up to one simple thought, making me question why this story was even needed in a book about writing.
I didn't give this book one star only because, scattered among the detritus (ie. most of the book) were a few interesting bits of wisdom, such as using good ideas in your writing as soon as they strike you rather than saving them for later.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het was voor mij niet het juiste moment om dit boek te lezen en dus ook niet om het naar waarde te schatten. Te vaak afgeleid en te druk met andere zaken, kwam ik er niet in, hoe dun ook. Toch sijpelde de enigszins ongrijpbare kracht van Annie Dillards intelligente schrijfstijl door en ving ik enkele glimpen op van de gewiekstheid waarmee ze zaken vertelt die ogenschijnlijk niets met schrijven te maken hebben, maar wel degelijk wezenlijke en onderhuidse kenmerken ervan behandelen.

Niet zelden heeft ze het over de schrijflocaties waar ze heeft gewerkt, de invloed ervan, de omgeving, het interieur, de plaatselijke bewoners die ze er ontmoet. Ze praat met een buurman/kunstenaar die iets over zijn werkproces vertelt dat ook iets over het schrijfproces laat doorschemeren. Of ze vliegt mee met een uitzonderlijke stuntpiloot/geoloog en beschrijft op zo'n unieke, literaire wijze de moeilijkheden en valkuilen van dat beroep, dat je eerder intuïtief aanvoelt dat ze het alweer over haar eigen vak heeft.

Dus ja, zelfs al had ik dit in betere omstandigheden gelezen, het lijkt me sowieso een boek waar je af en toe nog eens naar teruggrijpt, als je zelf of een van je leerlingen worstelt met een blokkade of schrijfkramp. 3,5* die er net zo goed 4,5* hadden kunnen zijn ...

[Aneesa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is soooo boring. There are two or three paragraphs of beautiful and inspirational writing about writing (which I copied down onto index cards), and a couple of things to remember: Annie Dillard is not a fan of shitty first drafts or re-reading your work too often. But the rest of the book is an autobiography of the mind; mostly her mind while she's sitting in her office in the woods or on an island, freezing her fingers off, not having a day job, and not necessarily writing, or if writing, not writing anything anyone understands.

[Barnabas Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meandering, reflective, and a bit ethereal--overall I found it enjoyable and inspiring. I am not overly familiar with Dillard's work, but I picked this one up out of respect for her reputation and because of the number of people I know who appreciate her work. It was well worth the read.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.

As I understand it, Jack Benny had always dreamed of being a virtuoso violinist and could play reasonably well, but because he knew he had no genius for playing, and as a result was rather heartbroken, he would pretend to be terrible at playing and do so for laughs. Obliquely related, when our kids first started school full time and I, as a stay-at-home-mom, was floundering for something to do, my husband said, "You love to read and you have all this free time, why not write a book?" I was slightly aghast, and if I had had a copy of The Writing Life at the time, I could have jabbed my finger onto any page and said, "This is why not, and this, and this".

At one point in The Writing Life, Annie Dillard bemoans the commercialization of book writing and the trend to try and write books for people who don't like to read-- today I think this would be books like Fifty Shades Of Grey (which, although I haven't read it, I will unfairly state that anyone could have written it) and Twilight (which I read at the insistence of a teenage daughter, and will state that just about anyone could have written it). These are not works of genius, and were certainly not written for book lovers, but I suppose they got nonreaders reading. So is that such a bad thing? It doesn't affect me that these books exist, but it does sadden me a little that if I tried to write a book it would by necessity be such a crass attempt at a commercial venture, as I know I don't have the spark of genius in me. Just as I could dribble paint on a canvas and not be Jackson Pollack, I could churn out words on a page and never be Annie Dillard.

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.

This is why I read, and as sadly as Jack Benny with his violin, why I will never write. There are many beautiful passages and insightful observations in The Writing Life, and if nothing else, will prompt me to explore Annie Dillard's novels (forewarned that they can be dense and difficult, and hopefully, written for one, like me, who loves to read).

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Writing Life — 3.5 ★

I received this book in 2015 as one of four books given by one of my mentors, a professor at my undergraduate college. It's funny looking back and realizing that ¾ books given were about writing... Cleary she noticed my growing fondness for writing much before I was able to put words to it (pun intended).

Don't ask me why it's taken me years to read this little book. Or ask me, and I'll say Timing*
And that time finally came when @magicpages inspired me to pick it up, and so I did. I took my time, read an essay, set it done, read a few more, wrote some thoughts, and then set it down again for a long bit. Thankfully, @jessicasbookstack gave me the kick to finally finish it with her #tinybookchallenge
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My thoughts: The Writing Life is composed of seven short essay ranging from conversations about: why you shouldn't become a writer, ideal workspaces e.g. windowless rooms or remote islands, the routines & discipline needed to start and (of course) finish a novel, in addition to seemingly mundane yet profound stories on life lived in cabins and the people you meet on small islands that are doing much the same — writing, art, etc.

There is something real and intimate about Dillard's writing, you can almost smell the gritty coffee she has each morning & taste the meager sandwich that accompanies it in the afternoon.

As essay collections go, this book felt like a great compliment *to other books* about writing. I say this because Dillard's voice (especially in the beginning) can come off a bit like a crotchety professor telling you all the reasons you shouldn’t go get your PhD or, in this case, become a writer. The unapologetic, sarcastic and at time rigid way she talks about writing is both refreshing & at times disheartening. But then again, she's not sugar-coating anything and I ended up respecting that.
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It was important to remind myself that in this collection Dillard isn't saying theres's a *one-size fits all* when it comes to writing. As a reader, it's important to recognize this is a reflection of *what has worked for Dillard* & equally important, it's a reflection on her own relationship with writing:

"I do no so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better. This tender relationship can change in a twinkling. If you skip a visit or two, a work in progress will turn on you." p. 52

There were gems in this collection for sure, with Essay numbers 2, 5 and 6 resonating with me the most. I highly recommend reading while on the beach.

Spot on shelf? I will hold onto this collection more for what it means to me (& who gave it to me) than for my affinity for the work as a whole. Having read her non-fiction work, I feel excited to dive into Dillard's fiction, specificially Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.