6 Lessons Learned From Annie Dillard’s "The Writing Life"
Five years ago, I bought my copy of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life off a street bookstand in Greenwich Village. The eggshell paperback with simple red and blue text stood out amongst the hardcovers or frayed paperback classics. I gave the man four dollars in exchange for a reminder of home and what would be one of the most formative craft books I would find.
Unlike many craft books, Dillard’s memoir breaks into ten chapters that reveal her own life as a writer that shapes her advice on the profession. Over the course of my own writing, I’ve turned back to these top six lessons learned from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.
“Courage is doing the messy path work, then demolishing the work and starting over.”
Dillard compares the start of a writing project to building a house. Yet, after the draft is done, she proposes a horror: Start over. Writers develop an instinct to know what parts of the work should stay and what should be abandoned. The first wave of writing should allow yourself to get the idea down onto the page. Yet, while this work may be necessary for the writer in preparing the book, the real work of the book may need to be refreshed and added onto. Like a house, Dillard notes that a writer must tap into the walls of the story, noting that what may have been essential to the writer will not be essential for a book or reader. She explains like good painters, writers have to work over the first strokes and colors to add and create the good writing that will exist after restarting. While this takes guts to do, the process and result leads the writer to better possibilities than imagined.
“There is no call to take human extremes as norms.”
Log onto Twitter and notice the headlines on authors. There has been an emphasis on writers who complete novels in less than a year or while under extreme circumstances, specifically in light of the pandemic. And because of how connected we are to other writers, the fear of not reaching that kind of achievement weighs heavy on a writer’s process. Yet Dillard points to writers like Faulkner, who agree that this kind of timeframe to write a book is rare. As she notes, “Some people lift cars.” Everyone has their own process. Novels take several years to refine and take shape. Dillard cautions to be gentle to yourself to not take rarities as the standard. Not every book, or writer, follows the same timeline to get to the end of a work.
“A schedule defends chrome chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.”
One of the important parts of a writing life is finding time. As Dillard advises, “There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.” Yet, finding a balance between the work, the to-do lists, vacations, and other tasks or events can test even the most dedicated writers. A schedule allows for a writer to practice discipline. Writers curate a schedule that applies to the task for the work, and can make a schedule as detailed or as loose as needed. Whether it’s thirty minutes or an entire morning, having dedicated time creates a set time within the day for your draft and allows you to set a routine based on things going on during the day, week, or month ahead. Putting a writing schedule into practice allows for a writer to stick with the craft and commitment to the work, and also enhances productivity for getting the work completed.
“The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity… that page will teach you to write.”
Although many differences exist between writers and their practice, a blank page unites writers in a common fear and safe place about the writing life. Dillard focuses on how a book leads the writer, and not the other way around. Before I encountered writing blocks on days where I tried forcing a work one way by pushing my way through the page. Dillard notes the ambivalence of the blank page: freedom and fear. While the latter resonates with many writers - Will I work all this way to have no one read my work? - there is immense freedom in the possibilities of a blank page rather than giving into the fear and not writing at all. As Dillard notes how a bee will lead to the tree, the blank page will lead a writer to the ideas, details, and lessons that will create the book. Giving into the guidance of the page gives writers courage to practice and learn from their art.
“Because it is up to you.”
I sometimes encounter two fears when writing: Why do I obsess over a specific niche or topic, and will anyone care about this work? Often we see reviewers label great works with words like “profound” or “groundbreaking” that it is common to worry about why you are writing this novel or that essay. Dillard discusses how certain great artists “produced complex bodies of work that endure” through their own unique sets of knowledge and passions. Dillard’s writing, after all, centers around revealing the beauty within ordinary, overlooked moments. Although writers may face that someone else may set out to write about similar ideas, only you can write the story within you and no one else is going to finish the novel for you. Each writer carries unique ideas and thoughts that lead to the varied stories that stack our shelves.
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.”
We know the phrase ‘to kill your darlings,’ but another lesson is to not lock away your ideas, either. Dillard argues that “the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive” to the writing process. In order to create great writing, writers must take risks with each idea and give the work everything they can so that the ideas aren’t lost. Even if a sentence is a stretch, just stretch. Revisions allow for writers to go back and cut the parts that aren’t working, but the writing will not grow if the boundaries of what a writer has created before are not pushed and crossed.
