Embracing the messiness of writing (and life)
My almost love letter to Anne Lamott
Sorry to interrupt this newsletter for a quick hello from the publisher, writer, editor, graphic designer, and customer service representative for Amid Life. ME! 👋😉💓 I write to spark self-discovery (mine as much as yours) and to inspire conversation, connection, and change. Get the full story below, or keep scrolling to read this week’s post.
Word by word
I have a supply of multi-colored 3x5 index cards on my desk. I use them to summarize each chapter of my book—a real-time outline of sorts. I tack them to the wall and rearrange them over and over. The drywall has become porous as a sponge.
I read that Anne Lamott folded index cards lengthwise and kept them in her back pocket for notetaking. When ideas come to me in the wild, I use a voice notes app to capture them, though I will forget to listen to the recordings.
The perfect first sentence, the intense feeling that brought to my knees, a tiny detail of spring’s first Trillium, the climactic epiphany that will land my book on Oprah’s list remain backlogged on my phone—forgotten like photos in an old digital camera.
I won’t carry index cards with me, along with a phone, keys, wallet, ChapStick, and readers—one more thing to misplace. But I like using them at home as analog version of the mind-maps and Trello boards I used to use obsessively. The tactile act of writing by hand helps me maintain a sense of control. I believe I can see order and progress when I arrange the cards.
Before computers and apps, my writing began on three-by-five index cards. At the library or at home with my Encyclopedia Britannica, I wrote a single idea on each card—phrases, quotes, and research—then dealt the deck out across the dining room table. Arranging the cards from thesis statement to conclusion was like playing a game of solitaire.
Writing came easily then—before I became both narrator and subject.
I drafted high school term papers in pencil, erasing and rewriting as I followed the ruled outline. A single revision (maybe two) meant circling paragraphs and drawing arrows to move a line up or down in the flow. Not having yet learned to type, I’d handed my mother a stack of wrinkled college-ruled notebook paper before she went to work in the morning, and she would return that evening with a thin sheaf of neatly double-spaced pages.
Perhaps this is the origin of my hesitant and slow writing process today. I backspace more than I move forward because the number of revisions can be infinite. A memoir’s structure is loosely defined and mine alone to determine. What matters more is a unique voice, compelling story, and sales potential. More factors than a small piece of card stock can hold.
While the aim of high school assignments was to support a thesis, now that I write for myself and about myself, I lose track of what I’m trying to prove.
When I turn to Anne Lamott’s seminal book on craft, Bird by Bird, for guidance, I realize the futility of an outline in any form when writing memoir. “You write toward this scene,” Anne writes, “but when you get there, or close, you see that because of all you’ve learned … along the way, it no longer works.”
This is why memoir is so hard to write and why AI will never replace human storytellers. We are not Large Language Models (LLMs) to be studied as if we’ve got the answers. We are unlearnable.
Shitty first drafts
Still, I struggle with perfectionism. I tinker with my index cards, looking for patterns in a shattered mosaic. I study the etymology of my word choices. I reorganize the pantry.
Of all the inspiration Bird by Bird contains, I love most the concept of shitty first drafts. “We need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here,” Anne reminds us.
As in writing, so too, in life.
Over the past very long, very cold Vermont winter, I subscribed to the writer’s 12-week newsletter series, A User’s Guide to Aging. Once a week, Anne Lamott’s wisdom waited in my inbox while I made coffee and stretched the ache from my bones.
“Today I woke up old and awful in every way,” Anne wrote in one essay. Me too, I thought. Me too.
I hadn’t slept because it was too painful to roll over and uncomfortable on my back. My hip or SI joint or piriformis—no one could tell me for sure. The bedside clock’s relentless tick reminded me once each minute that time was passing and I was whining because “everything hurt.”
Anne knows this feeling.
One morning, her newsletter moved me so that I wanted to show my gratitude. To write her a love letter, to tell her I felt seen. To thank her for her candor and good humor. But my words spilled out in salty translucent ink.
Maybe a good cry was what I needed. Salt water? Tears? Sweat? Bah. None of that works. I’ll write instead.
Practice makes perfect imperfection
When it’s hard to find myself on a blank page, I will return to the index cards, the shitty first draft, and the trust to learn as I go. I will consider Anne’s father’s advice to her little brother who was struggling to finish his term paper about birds. “Just take it bird by bird.”
“What you are doing may just be practice. But this is how you are going to get better, and there is no point in practicing if you don’t finish.” —Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird now sits next to the index cards, and I’ll pin this quote to my wall later today to remind me that the work must be finished, even if the story keeps going.
I’ve been working on my book for four years. There are days I backspace more than I move forward, days when I tear up the index cards and start over. There are circles and lines and tiny holes in the wall.
I am making a mess, but I only need to turn on “track changes” to see how far I’ve come.
Have you ever been moved to write a love letter (or a thank you note) to an author?
Tell us about it in the comments.
Work hard. Be Brave. Believe.
Catherine
I needed this one this week. Hello from ten years in. I've still got the index cards out, but the finish is in sight. <3
"This is why memoir is so hard to write and why AI will never replace human storytellers. We are not Large Language Models (LLMs) to be studied as if we’ve got the answers. We are unlearnable." I agree with this 100%, and I also love Anne Lamott - in fact, Bird by Bird is sitting on my nightstand.
One of my favorite passages from Bird by Bird is on page 201 and says, "Your anger and grief are the way to truth...When you have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in - then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home."
I'm grateful that I was able to see Anne speak last year in San Francisco about her newest book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love. I haven't directly written a love letter to an author, but I think all the times I quote or link to authors, that is a form of a love letter. Connecting their work to other work and sending words linked to words out in the universe like an ever growing Tibetan prayer flag, unfurling in the wind.