Craft, Craft, Craft—Bird by Bird

My all-time favorite recommendation for a book on craft is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. If you read just one book on craft, read this one. Lamott is very funny, creates terrific images and gives pointed advice. She models an intimate and natural  first person narrative nonfiction voice, telling stories to make her points, surprising the reader with originality. Her writing is not at all elevated; she’s right down there scratching in the dirt and finding old, valuable coins.

She has comforted beginning writers everywhere with her “Shitty First Drafts” concept.  Here’s some of her wisdom:  A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.

She’s a huge proponent of being kind to oneself—an idea that's sometimes hard to remember.