Where Jesus Flang Them

March 29, 2011

So one of my favorite parts (one of many) in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, comes in the "Character" chapter.  In this particular part, Lamott discusses the need for letting bad stuff happen to your characters--not that it all has to be bad stuff, but just that it has to be life stuff; it has to ring true. 

To bring home the point, Lamott writes the following:  "My Al-Anon friend told me about the frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night.  The wife kept dragging him in before dawn so that the neighbors wouldn't see him, until finally an old black woman from the South came up to her one day after a meeting and said, 'Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.'" 

That advice speaks to me poignantly right now, as I begin draft seven of my new novel.  Yes, draft seven.