With color, irony, and sensitivity, Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that is the writer's life...
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Feb 26, 2008
Malbadeen
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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 More...
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 More...
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Dec 17, 2009
Elise
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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 am More...
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 am More...
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Jan 04, 2009
Sarah
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Mykle and I read this book together. (He had read it before.) Overall, I found it very funny and easy to relate to. No one can match Annie Dillard for descriptions. That being said, she is sometimes a bit too flowery, so you really have to be the type of person who likes that kind of thing.
I tried reading some of her other books and could not get past the first chapter. I guess she's too intense for my taste. My mom read this and liked it a lot.
I tried reading some of her other books and could not get past the first chapter. I guess she's too intense for my taste. My mom read this and liked it a lot.
Feb 15, 2012
David
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My Year of Overdue Books--books I honestly should have read by this time in my life--continues with The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. I rescued this book from the free table at work a few years ago; as an editor and a writer myself, I thought it was certainly worth giving some time to. Then it sat on my shelf for years. Probably my coworker who left it on the free table has seen it sitting there and silently judged me on more than one occasion.
Annie Dillard published The Writing Life More...
Annie Dillard published The Writing Life More...
Feb 15, 2012
Richard
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Sometime after the excitement of beginning her book a serious writer will discover her work’s own “intrinsic impossibility,” says Annie Dillard in The Writing Life. Eventually she’ll probably throw out the main point, her grand vision, and settle for the more modest discovery she made in writing.
If a writer had any sense, she’d devote herself to a career selling catheters. The Writing Life is about persistent inquiry and love. A sort of commiseration, it contains rules of thumb: throw More...
If a writer had any sense, she’d devote herself to a career selling catheters. The Writing Life is about persistent inquiry and love. A sort of commiseration, it contains rules of thumb: throw More...
Feb 07, 2012
Ben
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The Writing Life, Annie Dillard’s commentary on the creative act, is a distinctive, deeply personal tract. A short piece – just 68 pages – it nevertheless manages to pack a wealth of detail, both biographical, philosophical and bibliographical that, as the Detroit News said, “has the power and force of a detonating bomb”.
Annie Dillard is an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The majority of her work is non-fiction, and is often imbued More...
Annie Dillard is an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The majority of her work is non-fiction, and is often imbued More...
Dec 31, 2011
Shayda
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This is not a practical book, like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life; it's more of a writer's confession, with descriptions of enclosed workspaces and the tyranny of the "line of words." The final chapter leaves writing behind (ostensibly) to talk about a stunt flyer's work.
I re-read this for purely selfish reasons: to see how it felt to read about writing, having finished my dissertation. Because of this frame of reference, I was most atten More...
I re-read this for purely selfish reasons: to see how it felt to read about writing, having finished my dissertation. Because of this frame of reference, I was most atten More...
Oct 15, 2011
Miriam
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"One rainy day, this member of the real world gave me a ride home. I invited him in for a minute, and somehow all hell broke loose.
Politely, he asked me about my writing. Foolishly, not dreaming I was about to set my own world tumbling down around my ears, I said I hated to write. I said I would rather do anything else. He was amazed. He said, 'That's like a guy who works in a factory all day, and hates it.' Then I was amazed, for so it was. It was just like that. Why did I do it? More...
Politely, he asked me about my writing. Foolishly, not dreaming I was about to set my own world tumbling down around my ears, I said I hated to write. I said I would rather do anything else. He was amazed. He said, 'That's like a guy who works in a factory all day, and hates it.' Then I was amazed, for so it was. It was just like that. Why did I do it? More...
May 05, 2011
Julie
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I was first introduced to The Writing Life in a creative non-fiction writing course I took several years ago. This was one of my first introductions to Annie Dillard and her style of writing. The instructor chose an excerpt from this book about Ms. Dillard playing a game of chess with an unknown opponent as she spent long hours sequestered in a library trying to write. Taken out of context, the excerpt was bizarre and difficult to interpret. Taken in context, the excerpt was still bizarre and
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May 20, 2010
Mike
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The semester's over: Hooray for everything! And now back to reading.
I'm actually reading another book, but found this on the bookshelf and wondered where it came from. Ruth probably picked it up at Housing Works or else at a stoop sale. Anyway, it was a nice surprise to see it hanging out on the bookshelf and so I flipped it open out of boredom to gander at the first page. And the writing just took over from there, as I couldn't put it down. The book has a wonderful pace to it and ma More...
I'm actually reading another book, but found this on the bookshelf and wondered where it came from. Ruth probably picked it up at Housing Works or else at a stoop sale. Anyway, it was a nice surprise to see it hanging out on the bookshelf and so I flipped it open out of boredom to gander at the first page. And the writing just took over from there, as I couldn't put it down. The book has a wonderful pace to it and ma More...
Nov 14, 2009
Rachel
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This book seems to be simply a series of meditations on writing and being a writer (and avoiding writing and being a writer, as well). I use the word "simply" because, ultimately, this is rather a simple book. It's not idiotic, but no great insights are revealed, and nothing comes to the surface to provide any new or revelatory description of The Writing Life. The book seems, instead, to be a collection of thoughts about writing and any other subject that seems to come up. It is almost
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Feb 22, 2011
Skipper
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It doesn't happen often. A book comes along, dressed in a plain, paperback wrapper, and sears you from the first word. Like a kiss from Glinda the good witch, the mark doesn't wash off once the book is put aside to make way for other matters; it lingers in the subconscious, where the meanings can be fully appreciated and understood.
"The Writing Life" is a kiss, but it's also a slap, a bugling wake-up call; pay attention! it says. Annie Dillard practices what she preaches-- More...
"The Writing Life" is a kiss, but it's also a slap, a bugling wake-up call; pay attention! it says. Annie Dillard practices what she preaches-- More...
Aug 17, 2011
Cheryl
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Audio e-library download to my Sansa Clip. I picked up this book because I have always been fascinated by the writing process. Surprisingly, the book is more poetry than a literal instruction of writing. The beginning of the book is full of analogies of painters, photographers, singers, inchworms and June bugs (yes, June bugs), snakes and alligator wrestlers (who is ultimately killed and eaten by the gator). Interspersed are tidbits of writers and writing mechanics, and the art of chopping f
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Jan 08, 2012
Mark
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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
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Feb 22, 2009
Kate
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Dillard presents a load of carefully chosen and exquisitely complimentary examples of what writing does to a person. This is by far the most helpful (and most humble) meditation on writing as a discipline and an art. It's useful to regard a rather un-glorious discipline as Dillard does, without alluding to the hoopla of modern publishing deals and the hollywood-inspired, iconic treatment of writers.
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Apr 10, 2009
Charlotte
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Because writing is my passion and because I retired a week ago, a friend gave me this book as a retirement gift. I was surprised to read that the author, who is a Pulitzer Prize winner hates writing. Perhaps that is because she feels she must write only books and because books take her years to write.
I hope to continue to write columns for newspapers, and articles for magazines as well as contribute to anthologies. Therefore, there will be less effort for each project, and I More...
I hope to continue to write columns for newspapers, and articles for magazines as well as contribute to anthologies. Therefore, there will be less effort for each project, and I More...
Jul 15, 2010
Jason
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I'm so glad I waited until now to read this book, because a lot of it would've been over my head even a year ago, but is exactly what I needed to hear now.
She expresses so many of the doubts I've been having recently about choosing a creative life. Wondering if I'm wasting my time and would be happier as a "normal" person:
"Many fine people were out there living, people whose consciences permitted them to sleep at night despite their not having written a de More...
She expresses so many of the doubts I've been having recently about choosing a creative life. Wondering if I'm wasting my time and would be happier as a "normal" person:
"Many fine people were out there living, people whose consciences permitted them to sleep at night despite their not having written a de More...
Sep 27, 2011
Tom
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Annie Dillard is a brilliant writer, but this book -- a collection of meditations on writing -- meanders around her writing career, sometimes stopping for a minute or two to kick at the dirt.
Sprinkled throughout are stories about other writers and adventurers, and while some sparkle, others feel forced, left to dangle.
The Writing Life is not a how-to manual or a bulleted list of pointers for young writers (no one said it was) -- and it's clearly the kind of meditation that i More...
Sprinkled throughout are stories about other writers and adventurers, and while some sparkle, others feel forced, left to dangle.
The Writing Life is not a how-to manual or a bulleted list of pointers for young writers (no one said it was) -- and it's clearly the kind of meditation that i More...
Oct 15, 2010
Dan
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There are better books about the writing life out there, but Annie Dillard's is certainly the most charming that I've read. This is not an instructional guide or a book about technique or philosophy. It's more an impressionistic account of what it's like, day in and day out, to live and work as a writer. This is a book that should resonate most deeply with her fellow writers. In that sense, it has the feel almost of a support session, as Dillard gathers around her all those who have struggled
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Jul 01, 2011
John
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I listened to the audiobook, yet maybe its a book that needs to be read. I could tell she is a wordsmith, but sometimes a wonderful choice of words can only be enjoyed if slowly savored. I mean G.K Chesterton is amazingly rich reading, but listening to his stuff makes it seem flavorless. Therefore, I conclude some books must be slowly read like poetry and maybe this was such a book. There were some parts of the book that I liked. But over all it was hard to follow, it did not seem to flow and s
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Apr 07, 2011
Tabitha
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Hmm. I had high hopes for this book. Annie Dillard’s essay was in Writing Creative Nonfiction’s example portion, and was a shining example of simple, succinct prose. Her subdued descriptions of a stunt pilot gave his life’s work an entire new level of grace. I was looking forward to learning some more writing tips and wisdom, a la Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird.
The Writing Life is definitely not an instruction manual in leading the aforementioned life. There are no exercises or pep More...
The Writing Life is definitely not an instruction manual in leading the aforementioned life. There are no exercises or pep More...
May 15, 2011
Mary Anne
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I can easily say that I genuinely enjoyed reading a significant portion of this book. My professor had us read a few snippets of it for a writing seminar, and I found I immediately wanted to read the rest of the book. My expectations were a bit off. I suppose I expected her to spend more time developing metaphors for writing, as she did near the beginning of the book, but I am still glad I read it. I realize that what she included was, to her, relevant to her own writing life, and I shouldn't ne
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Nov 07, 2009
Jacqui
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Sometimes you randomly select a book to read when you've nothing else to do and that book hits you in the forehead and say, "Hello, you. I am exactly what you needed to hear at this exact moment."
Writers, you should read this book. In fact, we should all read the first chapter every day before we sit down to write. And every time I have a difficult writing decision to make, I am going to ask myself, as Annie Dillard does, "Are you a woman or a mouse?"
Th More...
Writers, you should read this book. In fact, we should all read the first chapter every day before we sit down to write. And every time I have a difficult writing decision to make, I am going to ask myself, as Annie Dillard does, "Are you a woman or a mouse?"
Th More...
Oct 24, 2009
Tom
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Amid moving accounts of her own writing (and life) experiences, Dillard also manages to impart wisdom to other writers, wisdom having to do with passion and commitment and taking the work seriously. "One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place.... Something more will arise for later, something better." And, if that is not enough, "Assume you write for an au
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Jun 09, 2009
Vernon
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Dillard's little lightning storm of a book can be summarized so: the writing life isn't very romantic. Writing is a quiet act. The writer spends a lot of time alone, a unreliable imagination and half-realized characters the writer's only company; the diligent writer spends a lot of time obsessing about sentences, as well as obsessing about obsessions; the writer arranges the proper order of things in a useless imaginative world. Ultimately, no one cares about what the writer finally produces or
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Aug 06, 2009
Phoebe
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Dillard writes about letting all her house plants die while she is in the midst of a book. She writes about writing in libraries in the middle of the night and being so immersed in her writing that she's completely shocked to hear fireworks on the 4th of July. She writes about writing so intensively every night that when she gets home in the wee hours of the morning, she regularly half-hallucinates, half-fantasizes about being rocked to sleep by a giant.
I've learned everything I kn More...
I've learned everything I kn More...
Jul 27, 2009
Dinah
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This book is incredible. Annie Dillard does that brilliant creative nonfiction thing where it looks like a collection of anecdotes and scientific facts and bits of aesthetic theory have been thrown together randomly, but in fact speak to each other in profound and quiet ways. I didn't like every chapter and I can't imagine anyone will, but that's the beauty of this little book -- you will find three or four images / ideas / phrases that pierce you and make you rethink your relationship with you
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Oct 15, 2011
Jenny
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This book gives you a look into what it would be like to be a writer=hard work! There were a couple of passages that I really liked:
"In my view, the more literary the book--the more purely verbal, crafted sentence by sentence, the more imaginative, reasoned, and deep--the more likely people are to read it. The people who read are the people who like literature, after all, whatever that might be. They like, or require, what books alone have. If they want to see films that eve More...
"In my view, the more literary the book--the more purely verbal, crafted sentence by sentence, the more imaginative, reasoned, and deep--the more likely people are to read it. The people who read are the people who like literature, after all, whatever that might be. They like, or require, what books alone have. If they want to see films that eve More...
Sep 14, 2011
Jen
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Excellent book. Excellent. The quotes that hit me follow... :)
"If you ask a twenty-one-year-old poet whose poetry he likes, he might say, unblushing, "Nobody's." In his youth he has not yet understood that poets like poetry, and novelists like novels; he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat...[Artists] possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not poweful wills. They loved the range of materials they used. The work's possibilities excited the More...
"If you ask a twenty-one-year-old poet whose poetry he likes, he might say, unblushing, "Nobody's." In his youth he has not yet understood that poets like poetry, and novelists like novels; he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat...[Artists] possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not poweful wills. They loved the range of materials they used. The work's possibilities excited the More...
Jan 24, 2010
Ellen
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Dillard manages to show the intense intellectual and physical work of writing and still make the challenge appealing. Excellent writing is not accidental. Though I read this book many years ago, I still recall some of Dillard's writing advice (although I did need to look up the wording):
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, lose it, play it, all, every time, right away.More...
Do not hoard what seems good for a different place...Someth
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