The Writing Life

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 p......more

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 aerobatic......more

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......more

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......more

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......more