Bird by Bird

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time,
was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months
to write, which was due the next day. 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 about birds, immobilized by
the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put
his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy.
Just take it bird by bird.”  - Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

I'm on writing lock-down this week (with a few holiday errands thrown in), both excited and daunted by the path ahead. So I'm just taking it bird by bird, bunny by bunny, and Bordertown elf by Bordertown elf....

Here's some more good advice from Anne:

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're
conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real
caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for
your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what
you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the
terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.”

Yes.