Anne Lamott Teaches Unforgettable Writing

Annie Lamont is famous for writing bird by bird which is one of the best books ever written about the craft of writing and in it she has this line where she says that perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor the enemy of the people and it's sentences like that which have made her such a muse for so many writers over the years now beyond bird by bird she's written more than 20 books some novels some memoirs and then she just Published a book with her husband which has 36 rules for writing now in this interview

we talked about the kinds of people that creative should surround themselves with, why writer's block is a misnomer, and then later on, what she calls the very best writing prompt. As I was prepping for this conversation, one of the images that I got was one time I was driving down to Monterey from San Francisco. It was like early. It was probably 6:00, 6:15 in the morning, and It was so foggy that you could only see the headlights or the tail lights of the car in front of you. and you just got to follow that car

and you can't see very far. And it reminded me of how you think about riding, which is you can just see a little bit in advance and you can follow that. You don't need to see the entire road, but if you can just see a little and you just go and go and go kind of take it bird by bird, eventually a book, a piece, whatever it is, begins To emerge. >> Eel Doctrum, one of my favorite novelists in a in a interview once said that writing was like driving at night with the headlights on.

You can only see a little ways in front of you, but you can make the whole journey that way. I added the fog when I started repeating it because people that aren't writers think that it comes to me and then I sit down and or you and you just start writing and it doesn't at all. It's Pretty foggy. I might have an image. I might have a theme. I might have something I really want to talk about on paper and then I I can't see how it's going to turn out. I can't see where it's

going to end. I can't see what I'm going to see along the way, but I've learned through habit that that's okay. That I can see that the set of headlights in front of me and thank God for that set of headlights so that I can get from at least point A to point B. And when I get to point B, which might be two paragraphs later, it will inform me of where we might go next. >> So then what do you think writer's block is when people talk about that? Well, I wrote a lot about

writer's block in Bird by Bird because I think it's a misnomer. You know, I I use the image that um if your wife has locked you out that your problem isn't with the door. You know, the problem is deeper than that. And with writer's block, I think it tends to Be that you're empty. In fact, Isabelle Yende and I were doing a panel maybe 30 years ago, and she was just confiding in me that she Isabelle Yende had writer's block. And and I said, "I don't think you're blocked. I think you're really empty. You know,

I think all the sand has has escaped from the burlap sack and what you need to do is fill up. Stop. Get the pressure off of yourself and take some time and just fill up. You know, I wrote in bird by bird that I Think there's this little rag bag guy in in our center, the center of every writer or maybe every soul. And that our job is to go around and and pay attention and accumulate bits of fabric for the quilt, you know, and bits of thread and bits of dental floss and bits of

tinsel and bits of silk and bits of and and just to keep giving it to the rag bag guy. And then when we're ready, he or she will lift it to us and we start assembling the quilt of a essay or A novel or whatever we're working on, a memoir. help me to weave a few things together in terms of your relationship with yourself as a writer because I've picked up a few things. One is you got what you call the rag the rag rag bag. >> The rag bag guy. Okay. So you got rag

bag guy over here. The quilt that's all coming together and being empty. So trying to fill up through experiences and friends and and whatever else. And then on the other side the aversion to Writing and sort of the I got to stay in my routine, sit down to write. All this to say, how do you know that you're not lying to yourself here? Saying, >> "Ah, I just need to go accumulate more experiences and then it's month one, then it's year one, then it's year five." Let me interrupt you. It's not accumulating more experiences because

that puts more pressure on you. >> It's about paying more better attention. I have a priest friend who actually just Passed, an old man named Terry Richie, and he said, "The point is not to try harder. It's to resist less. And so it's not about trying to get it to happen or or jiggle it out of the universe. It's about awareness. It's about um agreeing to just become awareness and to start noticing to notice a certain color. That's all you need. I don't need the experience. I could describe your orchids. I could describe the slightly

greenish yellow Inside um the center of your orchid, you know, and then I could use that to describe somebody's eyes later. But I just notice it. The writer's job is to pay attention as life at life as it trumps by. This is a little off the subject, but there was a priest named Father Dowling who helped the very neurotic Bill Wilson get aa off the ground in 1935. And he said to Bill, "Sometimes I think that heaven is just a new pair of glasses." And I use that With all of my bird by bird writing

workshops because it's about putting on a better pair of glasses and waking up. You know, you stop hitting the snooze button and you start paying attention to people's faces, to people's eyes, to the landscape, to the sky, to the ground beneath you. And it's all what we meet our writing self with is that we meet it halfway by by noticing and um and so I don't say you fill up with more experiences or more friends or anything Like that. Say you start just like really paying attention. And then um you know my husband wrote Neil

Allen who's the co-author of good writing of course his last book was called um better days tame your inner critic and he changed my life almost 10 years ago on our first date when he taught me he said have you ever noticed a voice inside of you that discourages you with your writing or just tells you keeps you small and and I'm scared of trying new and I said have I ever you know having it right now you know I don't think I wore the right blouse. I have it all the time. I mean, I'm

almost 72. >> And um he taught me how to address it, which is to notice it and to say, "Oh, it's you. It's not truth. It's not the reality of my life as a writer. It's this old internalized voice from when I'm four and five. It's kept me alive when I was a little one because I didn't Run out into the street or swim out too far, right? And Neil taught me to notice it and to say, "Oh, it's you. Why don't you go to the library? Why don't you sit down right there and and

and get a book to read and I've got work to do, but I'll come get you if I need an ethical con consultation or something. It's terrified. It's your super ego terrified of being killed and annihilated." But you say, "No, no, you go to the library and read. I'll come get you as needed." And so that's the work I do in answer to your question because everything I need for every piece that I'm working on is really already there. I've always believed with my novels that the characters know who they are and what would happen

naturally in their lives and that I have to get out of the way so that they can tug on my sleeves and say I wouldn't do that. And one more thing, there's a a rule in good writing about if it's literary, it's you can't Use it. You know, if you're trying to sound literary, take it out. But I am always trying to get my characters to say things that they really wouldn't say, but they're just so brilliant or ironic or funny or they'll make people think I'm not a buzz kill or something like that. And

I just have to take them all out. Like Jessica Midford said, "Kill your little darlings." But you kill your little darlings in the second draft. You know, you write a really terrible first draft and then you can apply these literary rules, but everything in you wants you to not write. And so the first thing I say to my bird by bird workshops is you got to stop not writing, you know, and a lot of my workshops involve people explaining to me that they're going to start writing as soon as soon as their last child is

out of the house, as soon as they move to the Russian River, as soon as they retire. And I Say, you know what, that's fine, but if you're not writing now, you're not going to write then. You know, the thing inside of you, the inner critic, is telling you not to write. No one in your family is glad to hear you're working on a memoir. Believe me. >> Yeah. What was the line you said? You said, "The key is not to blank. It's >> the key is not to try harder, but to resist less." >>

Wow. What a beautiful line. Mhm. >> So when you're at the keyboard, how does that sentence manifest itself? How do you channel that idea? >> One of the rules in good writing is trust your voice and I just also tr don't you just trust the process. If you sit down and you start writing, it's like getting in very cold water and you're in. You might as well paddle around for a minute. Yeah. So, I paddled around for a minute and then I had this other image and then I got that and it Was all terrible.

And by the time I'm done, it's way too long. You know, it's a third too long. Then I go back and one of the rules in good writing is take out the boring stuff. I took out some of the overly long descriptions. I took out the parts that make me look good. And and then I had a um a really workable second draft. Then I apply the rules. I take out the varies. I take out the actually. I write stronger verbs. And all of a sudden I have 600 words, a couple of Manuscript pages. That

was what I had been after all along. Only if you asked me when I sat down, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. That's over and over and over again how I write. >> Tell me about the stronger verbs. >> I have to say on our second date, Neil handed me this um list of his 34 rules. That's the subtitle is 36 ways to improve your sentences. But I added write the hard stuff which you like and I added take out the boring stuff which I like. But um his first rule is use strong

verbs so that you could you would say um guy guy walked down the hall towards the kitchen, right? Not interesting. What if >> he stumbled down the hall? >> What if guy stumbled down the What if he staggered down the hall? What if guy army crawled down the hall? you know, you just over and over again keep finding a stronger verb >> with your second draft. With the first Draft, you know, in Bird by Bird, I said there's three drafts. There's the child's draft. You're too young, but our pediatrician of um in the 50s was

um Dr. Spock, whose baby book sold something like 12 million copies. Our our parents raised us on Dr. Spock. But at any rate, he said, "With two-year-olds, you must be firm but friendly." And that's how I edit my first draft. I'm firm but friendly. And I say, "I like this. I like your description, but we're gonna Maybe use it somewhere else," which is a nice way of saying, "We're going to cut it here." And it's the adult draft. And you take out and you fix and you find the stronger bird. And the third draft in

Bird by Bird, I described as a dental draft. And you go tooth by tooth. You wiggle and jiggle. You floss. Some teeth might need a little attention. Some teeth are fine. you go on to the next one. And that's really what good writ good writing is the dental draft. Yeah. I forgot the question. >> So did I. I was listening. I was who who who knows? Oh, it was about verbs. It was about verbs. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Do you have any more to say on that? >> When I was a

young writer, I didn't know that everybody was using the thesaurus and I thought that I was cheating. But it's a invaluable tool because first of all you get immersed in words and that's what's writing's all about. You know you Have to amass a kind of battered old toolbox if you're going to get anywhere with writing. We hope that good writing is functions kind of as a toolbox. But a thesaurus just can't be beat. >> Well with the thesaurus I think of there's three categories of words. There's words that you know and words that and use.

Know and use is the first category. The second is don't know and don't use >> and those are the fancy words. Yeah. >> And then there's a middle category with the thesaurus that's really useful, which is words that you know but you don't use and they were kind of like subterranean and you're like, "Ah, that was a good one." And I just kind of plucked it. Like say I'm writing about crying. Like I know the word wept. That's not a fancy word. No, >> but if for whatever reason I can't access that word and then

I get wept, >> it's like yes, yes, yes, that's what I Was looking for. And I think that >> implicit here is that the temptation with the the source is to try to sound literary and you're saying no, no, no, no. >> But there still is use in the source, a lot of it in finding that middle category of words. >> Exactly. My dad was a writer and he taught me the habits of writing that you don't wait for inspiration. There's really no such thing. You sit down every Day at the same time and you

get your work done. If you, you know, if you wanted to be a writer, you're going to be a writer. It's like you got one of the Willy Wonka golden tickets, you know, and so you write as a debt of honor that you got. Maybe you're not going to get published. Maybe you are. No one knows. But you sit down and you write. One of the rules my dad was very strict about was that you used 15 uh uh five cent words, nickel words instead of 25 cent words. One of Neil's rules is that you

just you don't use words we have to look up. Shirley Jackson said a confused reader is an antagonistic reader. And if I have to look up one of your words, I'm on to you that you don't have confidence and and and I I may not if I've read two or three pages of your book in the bookstore and you're using words I don't know, I'm going to probably not buy the book. Tell me more about observation because we're talking About sort of the external observation of just open your eyes and listen and observe. But then

there's another kind of observation of just the friends that you surround yourself with. Friends who are observant themselves, who have good lines, good observations, and then also who are funny. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've always said I said in Bird by Bird that you should get the most brilliant, fabulous friends you possibly can, but none of them should be Writers because if they say something really great, they're going to want to use it. But as I as we started off saying, it's about paying attention. It's about being in the express line at Whole Foods and

there's an old person in front of you and they first of all, they got like 17 items and they're using coupons in the express line, right? and you have an opinion, but you keep it to yourself because you were raised well, but the Person behind you isn't. And they're muttering stuff and you get that down because it's important, you know, and it's and you you may use it, you may not. Now, in bird by bird, this is before cell phones, I always had my students write carry a pen in their back pocket and an index

card and then get home and take the index card out and add it to the pile. And you may use it, you may not. I may not use that color green that's in the very center of your purple Orchids, but I get it down on paper because just writing it makes it almost indelible. Not when you're my age, but your age. And you in writing it down on your notes in the phone, it functions the same way. How did your relationship with God change your relationship with the inner critic? Right. because in so much of

the way that you describe your relationship with him, it's it's it's focused on grace and forgiveness. >> Forgiveness and Well, I got to say that Neil's list uh no, Leo's Neil's work with the um his clients and me on our second date changed my life because I'd never exactly had an image for it. And the work he does is bringing your inner critic out and looking at it and seeing who it is. Well, most people would identify a mother or father's nagging or hectoring voice as saying, "Why are you wasting your time writing?" And mine

was This really, really awful personality in New York City publishing from I've been in publishing for 45 years. And he goes back that far. And um but anyway, so as soon as I could see that voice, I could understand what the I mean, I wouldn't say it's the devil or the enemy, but I would say it was the voice that thwarts me and that tells me I'm not that good. I'm not a New York City glitterati type, you know. And so, um, all those years with me and God and and not knowing About the inner

critic, I would have I'd have to carry these two voices at once, you know, and I would I always would hear God just sort of gentling me like a horse, you know, and just saying, "It's really this is really good. I like this. It's going to be good." And and I got you. I'm right here. And and then I'd also hear this voice. It's like the, you know, the cartoon with you've got the angel and the devil on each shoulder and um Everything has gotten a lot easier since easier since I've been able to visualize

the critic of uh well at the time 62 years that had been telling me that what I was up to was really not going to work out in the end. >> And how do you vis visualize the critic? Do you have do you see the critic? Do you name the critic? >> You can read about it in better days, Neil's book. But the way we did it last night on stage actually, you you notice Where it is. For most people, it's in the head. For us types, it might be in your torso, but you bring

it forward and you have it in your hand and you start to talk to it. You do both voices. I say to it, "Who hired you?" And it usually says, "You did." Why did I hire you? Because you were afraid of looking bad. You're afraid of embarrassing yourself. When did I first hire you? Well, you're five. You know, when you were starting kindergarten and you were already Getting that toxic self-consciousness, you start to talk to it and then eventually you say to it, "I'd like to take over." And it's worried about you taking over because

you might make a fool of yourself. We've all had embarrassments. We've all disgraced ourselves because I have a public life. It's happened for me with big audiences. But then I point out to my inner critic that it was supposedly in charge when that happened. I ask it if it can trust Me to take over. No, it begrudgingly says maybe. And I I ask it to go to the library because I'm in the middle of something. And I could picture this voice that only esteemed a certain kind of very very elitist white male New York New

Yorker writer and not a, you know, aging hippie California type, you know, a hugger. So um when I heard that almost 10 years ago, it it be being able to picture that voice that I had internalized as a very young writer. I Sold my first book to Viking at 25. You know, I'm going to be 72. I always always heard that voice and seeing that face and it was so wonderful to see it and to be able to say, "Oh, thank you for keeping me alive as a child, but I I won't be needing you

right now. I'm in the middle of something. Tell me then about uh about dialogue, about learning to listen to how people speak and listening, observing, coming back to that and then getting that Translated onto the page because dialogue is it has to have a kernel of truth in writing, but it's also very different from how people actually speak on the bus or at a restaurant or in the park. >> And dialogue is poor or weak. dialogue is the main reason I'm not going to buy your book in the bookstore. If I've read the first three

pages of your book um during the audition and if the dialogue is forced Or if it's just too clipped and witty, I'm not I'm not interested. Clipped. >> Yeah. And we don't talk that way. I mean, we always in in good writing and in bird by bird, I always say, you know, write a ton of dialogue and then take most of it out. Um, read it out loud. Read what you've written out loud because you're going to hear how artificial it sounds. People don't talk that way. People don't talk in clip perfect sentences. And we

should know Which character is speaking by the rhythm and their vocabulary, not by you saying um, Andrea said. And, and you can never use other words for said. One of the whole rules in good writing is you can only say said. You can't say um Andrea chuckled. >> Why would you do that given the verb thing that we talked about earlier? >> Oh, because it's because it's all so artificial and it just feels so sophomoric to because the author is Trying to find substitutes for said. I would prefer patches of dialogue where there's no there's

just quotation marks. There aren't he said, she said, he said, which would also be a drag. But if you start saying he chuckled, he enthused, he he proclaimed. Um, I should know by the verbs in your dialogue and the rhythm of the person's speech who's talking and the condition in which they're talking. I can also describe what the person is doing with their Hands is while they're talking or with their what happens with their mouth when they're talking. Of course, as long as I use a strong verb to describe that and no adject adverb, >>

but um it's a dialogue's really tough. And in the old days, I had all my students get Radio Shack um tape recorders, but but now it's on the phone, the voice memo. And if you read your dialogue, you'll just cringe when you hear the the the sentences that ring False, that ring like somebody who has had some time to to rewrite their sentences before. Another way to do to learn dialogue is to read the masters, you know, to sit at the feet of people who Dr. is great with dialogue. Norah Efron's great with dialogue. >>

What did you learn from them? >> I just learned that you can make it really interesting without trying too hard. That you can have dialogue that's just a few sentences that make you laugh Out loud. the way pe you know like pe somebody might say um at the end of your saliloquy they might say good to know and you burst out laughing you know or um or they look at you blankly and then they say whatever as a teenager might and or a teenager might say no problem and um and so what I learned is

that uh you know the the point of both bird by bird and good writing is that you can do anything if you can get away with it, if you don't lose me. And I I have read Books that are almost entirely dug. Um Peter Mat's brilliant book, Far Tartuga, is in Ptois, you know, most of it. And it was what >> what is PWA? >> It's like the the lingo or the dialect in New Orleans, say that is just a mix of Caribbean and Native American. and it's complicated and um and I would read it

because of the brilliance of the people's hearts and and and the plot that was unfolding and but mostly Because I'm an old person and I'm tired. I don't want to work, you know, I don't want to work. I don't want to uh dissect your dialogue. I don't want to wait it out and see if you're going to get to the point. I want you to get to the point. It's again a confused or a bored reader is an antagonistic reader. And the thing is that long patches of dialogue tend not to work >> for me.

Al Frankening. >> Mhm. >> I love that word clipped. Clipped dialogue. >> Oh yeah. >> Explain that to me. >> There are writers that can get along with clip dialogue, but >> what does that mean? >> It means like snappy. It's like snappy. So if you have characters, >> that's a negative connotation, right? Well, if you have somebody that's snappy And they're warm and they're they're doing the the they're they're doing good for the people around them and they're in a hurry and they're snappy, that's different. If it's somebody at a cocktail party who's just

trying to impress you with their overeducation, then it is tiresome. I remember this has nothing to do with anything but updike who I grew up on, who I really revered and learned dialogue from. He uh he had tiny issues with women. And So, but putting that aside for a minute, but he said in one story that um being at a cocktail party where people were talking at him, he felt like he was being pelted by tiny pingpong balls. I just love that. And that's how snappy dialogue when it's not called for makes me feel. I

feel pelted. >> How do you feel like Marin County or the state of California is washed over your work? I am just so entirely California. You are California. I am just so California to my core. >> The West Coast is infinitely less ironic. Infin like my husband was raised on the west on the east coast in Arlington. And when he moved to the west coast 20 years ago, he was shocked by how kind of mellow the people tended to be. I mean, infinitely less ironic and competitive. It's just the the effect that California has on

you and the way that I write is something that has been troubling for East Coast reviewers. It's Not how they're the right the writers that for whom they give their stamp of approval. Right. >> So explain the differences in the actual writing quality between what you're doing and what you saw as East Coast the sort of East Coast approach. Well, take say Jonathan Franson for instance, who's very very >> famous and really revered by the East Coast um critics. He writes in a way that is just very lofty, you know, Beautiful sentences but fancy words

and and very very ariodite and um and complex and and I don't write that way. And um and that complexity is really loved by East Coast critics. or um or let them and there's you know then there's lots of writers on the on the on the east coast who don't write that way but um the way I write is is like say west coast is broad again or the beatnicks you know or um just the San Francisco avantgard and um Evan canal well he writes more like an east he's St. Lewis, but um there's just

a whole sensibility that's different because I think first of all the weather's warmer, so we're not like in in a state of clenched and and clutch and um held breath as much as as people on the west east coast might be, but just a different sensibility. You know, we're not ancient. We we haven't been around that long. Been around for 150 years instead of, you know, whatever it Is, 400. >> Yeah. I've been wanting to ask you this question the whole time, but I have the book help thanks wow here. And we're talking about observation,

opening your eyes, and it's like a prompt. It's like I've just been thinking to myself, how do you just get that sense of wow and restore that sense of wow and open your eyes to it? Because you realize that so much of our experience of the world and the day-to-day of life is quite myopic. >> Yeah. >> Claustrophobic. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you get that sense of wow, I think partly by deciding to be a be available for it. I mean, one of the great gifts of being a writer is that it can help you

res get your curiosity restored that, you know, they stop grading for curiosity in first grade and a lot of us put it away because it wasn't really encouraged. I mean, imagination and curiosity were encouraged, but really Being good at long division was more of a value when we're coming out and deciding to be a writer and carrying an index card or in a pen with you or your phone if you're going to use notes means that you have decided you're going to start paying attention again. So yesterday morning, my husband and I left our boutique

apartment with the broken sink and we went out and and and my feet were really really sore from the day Before and my knee was really sore and I and we had I had this media thing I didn't really want to do. We decided to stop into an Irish um tavern to get the Irish breakfast which was like a great price for a ton of food. We were sitting at it. There was no one there. And the bartender came over, very genial Irishman of about 60 who we could barely understand. We thought he was punking

us. And when when I saw that, I started laughing again. Well, you know, I said In Help, thanks, Father, that laughter is carbonated holiness. >> I love that. >> Once you're laughing, you're you're back on sacred ground. And at that moment, I decided to pay attention to this guy. It was at that moment like getting spritzed by a plant mister. And so we just started talking and he got us everything and then um I asked for the Wi-Fi and it happened to be 147 Guinness. He started spelling Guinness for me. Two Ends to it. And

I said, "You know, I'm a sober alcoholic. I've been sober for decades." And um then I really remember how to spell Guinness, believe me. And he laughs. Well, then Neil got up during our breakfast to go to the bathroom and the guy came over and he said kind of so devoce, "How long have you been sober?" And I said, "I'm coming up on 40 years." And he said, "Wow, the third great prayer." And then he reached in his pocket and he pulled out A 24-hour chip and a sixmon chip. And he said, "I just celebrated

6 months clean and sober." And we both said, "Wow." because that's a miracle for anyone, for me, for him. And all of a sudden, I was on a track B, which was a new pair of glasses, paying attention. And I use that story in the thing I described to you earlier in this piece I was writing this morning. And that's how it all works. Yeah. When you're opening a book, what are the things that you're really Thinking about on the first page, the first few pages, the first sentence? What really matters to you? Well, I'll

I'll give a book three pages that usually it's a book >> as a reader. >> Yes. In a bookstore that I'm auditioning. Usually it's because I've been reading good reviews about it. Although there are almost no reviews anywhere anymore. But if you look around um Or somebody's told me that they loved it and I'll pick it up and I'll read the first few pages and I will be looking for somebody that is using that is writing really nice sentences. You know MFK Fisher, the probably the world's greatest food writer said, "What you're doing as a

as a writer is writing one clean, fresh sentence and putting a period at the end of it." And so I'll start to read and I'll see if that that if these Sentences are pleasing to me and I'll read a little bit more and I'll see I'll just start noticing, oh, I like this. I want to get to the bottom of this paragraph. And here's the catch. I'm going to turn the page and I'm going to keep reading. Oh, I like this. I want to go on and end like that. And the sentences are pleasing. They're

not ostentatious. They're not showoffy. the pro, you know, the Neil's rule. If it's literary, it isn't. If it's literary, I'm not going to be interested in it. If it's really human, and you know, ever since we got here on Earth, we we've loved stories about ourselves. You know, the first storytellers are gathering people around the campfire. They're telling people stories about their, you know, their ancestry and what they make of it all and what the lightning means and what the water and and that's what I want to read about still. I want people to hold

up a mirror For me, whether it's science fiction or takes place in ancient Egypt. I want it to be about the drama of humankind. And, you know, I'll pay extra if it's sort of funny, you know, and that's what I'm looking for in the first three pages of about pleasing sentences. somebody with a story to tell. >> My favorite quote and there's some amazing quotes in this book and good writing. Yeah. Yeah. Um is something that my screenwriter friend Randy Maym Singer said. She wrote Mrs. Doubtfire and a bunch of other stuff. She said I

think it's seven words. Tell me a story. Make me care. >> How do you make people care? >> Well, if you're writing a novel, you have characters they want to find out more about. They want to find a character who you recognize as a real person. Maybe I mean maybe it's um Ignatius J. Riley in a confederacy of Dun Dunes who has nothing nothing in Common with me, but I recognize him as a really dear messed up human like the rest of us. You know, if you don't have anything wrong with you, I'm not interested.

If you don't have anything wrong with you, there's a zero chance I want to sit with you at the table, at the dinner table, no matter how brilliant and educated you are. And so, you are um a person I recognize as one of us, and something's going on that makes me worried for the character, Makes me care. The character, I wrote about this a lot in Bird by Bird. Um there's something at stake. You know, the character has something to lose. And we all have the same things to lose at stake. You know what can

we can lose our sense of meaning. We can lose our connection to other people. We can have a sense of loss that is feels like it's unservivable. So, it's a character who feels real and human And who is in a predicament that I can identify with where I'm pulling for him and I want to find out what happens. That's how you make me care. >> Mhm. The word desire came to mind. Like, do they need to want something? >> That's a good question. I mean, usually what you want is the same thing that is at

stake. I want my son who's 37 and my grandson who's 17 to outlive me. That's basically at this stage in my life all I want. And Um and so that's what's at stake. And so if I say that on the first second p, it's like Ipsson saying if there's a gun in the first act, it really needs to go off at some point, right? So if I say in the first couple pages, all I care about is that my son and grandson survived me. It's a pulse and we're going to go uhoh. And talk to

me about this relationship between you need to like your main character, but that doesn't need >> mean that they need to be perfect. >> You don't need to like your name. Well, you know, the great short story writer Ethan Kanan, who teaches at the Iowa Workshop now, he and I have been fighting about this for 35 years now. He said the most important thing is that you have a likable character >> and um and that you never and I think that that is maybe true, but you can have a really really screwed up character um

totally self-obsessed, but kind of pathetic in a way that you Relate that I relate to. I was going to say what we've been fighting about is he said you should never write out of revenge. And I always told my students, you need no other reason, but that the kids who teased you in seventh and eighth grade should eat it. You know, when they see that >> back at you, man. >> Back at you. >> I'm going to prove something to you, Annie. >> There you go. >> The big bully. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> How did

you get to the revenge point? >> I discovered that early on. Well, also I discovered early on I started writing my first novel when my dad I when my dad got sick with brain cancer when I was 23. He said, "I'm going to write my version of this. Why don't you write my your version?" We were a little family, my two brothers and dad Living in this little hippie town on the coast. This is 77 197. >> This is Tibra. >> This is Bolinus. A little >> Bus, the surf town. >> Yeah, surf hippie town.

M >> and um what I discovered and what he taught me was that when you decide to be a writer, everything is grist for the mill. You know, every experience, every thought, you put it all down, you take out the boring stuff. But you I could Use everything that happened, everything cruel that happened to me, I could use. Now, you have to worry a little bit about slander and liel. So, I have to change the person's hair color and their height, right? I have to make you a tow head who is only 5 foot three

and then you're not going to recognize yourself or sue me because also you can't sue me because you're not recognizable to the public, right? But I can use all the cruel things you've said to me so far in This first hour um against you and and u I can use direct quotes, but you can't sue me. So that's how I started on understanding that people that had were behaving really badly were really inter they were kind of a recognizable enemy to everyone. People who put you down for whatever for your values for your looks for

your hair for whatever. >> What was that line about childhood? Like if you if you've gone through a childhood, you Have enough to write about. >> That's Oconor. You know, she wrote a book people don't read enough. And she said in it, "If you've survived your childhood, you have enough to write about for the rest of your life." And it's really true. I mean, it's the great prompt. My son has a writing workshop, a collective with 700 writers in it called awritingroom.com. Not the writing room.com who are our mortal enemy, but adoriting.com. They have a

prompt every Morning and often the prompt would be tell me a childhood memory because then you are if I ask you to do that you're going to be able to write for a month right because what you're going to do is and my my advice and I give a lot of talks there is make a list of every childhood memory starting at your very first holiday your very first experiences of nursery school you know you're probably four you might have a flicker of something from three maybe a Little bit from four and then five you

it starts happening cuz you're in society then and you're on in the the black top which is where the where the the any sense of safety you might have had before ends and you start you get these prompts I'll tell you a prompt right now that and for your listeners that will could unleash a whole book for you this is the big awriting.com prompt there was a tree >> there was a tree. Tell me about that tree. Is it from your childhood? Is it the tree in the cherry tree outside your window that is not

in blossom but that is budding in bud? Is it the tree that that you fell out of when you were in second grade where you got a cast which was incredibly cool because all the kids were jealous of it and they all wrote messages on you. Was it the tree where you carved someone's initials? Or is it the tree where you buried your grandfather's ashes that You'd never have bounced back? You know, >> I mean, the story of humanity begins with the tree. I instantly the first day I thought of I thought of Eden. What

is it about trees that have this sense of like the tree of life? There's a sense of mysticism and possibility. Like what is it about trees that's so generative and filled with life? I think that somehow you could make a case that the tree is every single thing about life that there is. Like birds are more Complicated. You know, I've had a couple of books with a with the word bird in them um imperfect birds and bird by bird because if I've written that if um bird song were the only proof that there is an

alternate reality or a deeper richer reality, it would be fine. It would be plenty for me. But a bird is a little bit esoteric. They're so trippy, you know. They're so trippy. >> People equate them to dinosaurs. >> Yeah. Well, they can't spring from Dinosaurs. And um but a tree, it is a tree of life. It is the individual branch and the individual apple and whatnot. But it's also we have learned that it's that vast network of communication that one tree over there is feeling sickly and this tree over here, me with my root structure,

I can give you vitamins. I can give you food and I do because it's all part of the and that's not the human experience unless that you decide that that's what You're going to be a part of now is that kind of interconnectedness but that's what the tree is and um and I I really believe that if you start if you write down there was a tree period you could write for days >> for days. >> Mhm. >> What was the other writing prompt you're going to talk about? >> Okay. Well, Abigail Thomas, who's written

a book on memoir and and another Book, Still Life at 80, she gave me a few of these great prompts. One was, "Write down 10 things that you've forgotten." Then when you're done, >> 10 more. >> Tell me 10 things you remember. >> I remember the smell of the cookies in my grandmother's kitchen. She was not a good cook. But the cookies smelled like love. And they smelled like almond. And they smelled like vanilla. And they Smelled like that. My grandmother really really wanted me to feel cherished and loved in her funky little kitchen. >>

I remember the way that one grandmother used to put capers on everything and she was a decent cook. And the way the other grandmother >> grew up during the Great Depression and would serve us food with mold when we went over to his to her place. Tell me something that you wish you hadn't said. >> Oh. Oh god. I don't even want to say some of the things I wish I hadn't said here, but because I have a public life, some of the things I've said have haunted me. You know that some of the things

I've said have um gotten me cancelled at speaking engagements. Um some of the things I've said to people wounded them. Some of the people things I said to my child, I just said in desperation. I said because I was at the end of my Rope. I want to say that I'm forgiven. My son was a methhead, an alcoholic. Grace of God and the sober men of San Francisco. He's got 14 years clean and sober. But there were things I said during those bad years that I can't believe came out of my mouth. Every parent, every

parent has said things they swore they would never say that their parents said to them and that when they found out they were going to be a parent swore They would never say ever. I will never say and they inevitably do. >> Let's go back to writer's block because I suddenly remember I gave a talk at a writing room that I think was useful. Um because I know a couple of um hacks. Uh um one is to um skip way ahead that you're you're on page 37 of your book and you are blocked. You're where

Isabelle Yande was. You're trying to gather stuff for um the rag guy, the little Dr. Seuss character, and it's Just not happening. Skip ahead. Move on. You don't know what happens now. The person is face to face with somebody who hates them and they're in a broken elevator and you don't have a clue what happens. Skip ahead to page 50 where they're getting off the elevator and there's been a slight shift of the plains of the earth. There's a difference in their faces. There's a difference in their eyes. They're not shut down right now. They're

not glaring. They have left the realm of glaring. So you shift ahead from 37. Maybe you just shift ahead to page 41. You don't know how they get there, but you know, they end up walking off and they're they bump against each other. >> It's impossible to have imagined on 37 the people who hate each other in a broken elevator um can step off four or five or six or 20 pages later and they bump shoulders. >> How do you get I don't know. Now, my husband with his clients has this amazing tool he gives

him that I don't know is the portal to freedom. You know, are you going to stay in that job? I don't know. You're supposed to know what you're going to do next, what you're going to if you're going to stay, if you're going to go, if you're whatever. He teaches people to say, I don't know. And you're you're as a writer can say, I don't know. How do you and I who have Loathed each other for it's got to be 30 years now get off the elevator and we have small smiles on our face. How

do we get I don't know but I can pick it up there. So you skip ahead. The other thing you do, and this is the other thing I know about writer's block, is you suddenly introduce a character who out of the blue who coming off the elevator knows you both and is astonished that you are standing so close to each Other after what happened on the black top when you were in fifth grade and he had chosen Caroline over you for the ice skating part, ice rink party. You introduce a character who knew you both.

You introduce a character who also hates a person that you had formerly been hating when you the ele when you got on the elevator. Whatever. You introduce somebody new. You shake it up. >> So, what's the main point there? What's the main point? >> The point is that you introduce something that hadn't been there at the point where you were blocked. That it's like a snow globe. You shake it up. That it's not the exact frozen uh landscape that have been in the snow globe. You shake it up. It's like there's a um chapter in

Bird by Bird on Polaroids and it talks about how because when I was coming up and when I wrote Bird by Bird, we took Polaroids. We didn't have phones. We didn't have I don't even Think we had disposable cameras yet. But you've taken a picture of this scene. you know, there's a perier bottle leaned against the the um couch and there's the famous orchids with the green that and I take a picture of it thinking that I'm really taking a picture of you and I'm noticing this other stuff and then that's where you are with

before the writer block and it's it's kind of blackish greenish and it's developing. It's a Polaroid and it Takes time to develop and all of a sudden I notice that there a bunch of books under the couch that I hadn't even noticed, you know, and that actually I recognize one of them and I want to go get it. I don't cuz I'm because I'm on the spot here, but I recogn all around here, but I hadn't noticed at the point of writer's block. I thought I was taking a picture of you. What I'm taking a

picture of is this coffee table book that my dad had who's been dead for 50 years nearly and that my I remember all of a sudden sitting with my dad and on the couch and we're listening to Theonius Monk and he's playing Lulu's back in town and I hadn't remembered that song and now I can play it and I'd forgotten that Monk's wife called him Melonius Thumpk and it's all coming back based on something I hadn't known. phone was interesting to me. >> One of the things that I love to do, and I'm I I

I said this to a friend last Weekend. He was like, "Stop stop joshing me." I'm I'm telling you, I do this all the time. I just go for a walk and I play I spy >> and he's like, "How do I find more writing ideas?" And I go, "Walk down a block and just try to observe five things that you've never noticed about that block before. Look at the ornamentation on the lampost. Look at the way that the trash can has some stickers on it. Look at the way that There's some trash towards the end

of the block, but not on the middle of the block. Think about why do I like the staircases on this house more than the one on that house. And you just play I spy and you just try to notice as many different things. Try to surprise yourself or just try to notice something kind of like you're with a four-year-old. Yeah. And something about that awakens your eyes to the world and you begin to see all of these things That are that were somehow under the register of consciousness but were always right there. >> My husband

said, and I started my last book somehow with this line that everything true and beautiful can be discovered on any 10-minute walk. M >> whether you're in Fairfax and it's all trees in bloom or we were just of Washington DC where every single cherry tree had gone into bloom for our arrival and here where things are a tiny bit Behind but they're just starting to blossom just now and you can see the buds. >> You could just see the buds on the tree buds on the tree. Those weren't there two days ago, >> right? You

can just see the buds and you could stop and be blown away. And then you all of a sudden remember the Anaas Nin quote that the pain of staying in bud was suddenly too much and you decided to go ahead and see what it was Like to bloom and all of a sudden the world is happening again for you. It's it's it's moving and it's showing itself to you. >> Alif Shafak who came on the show a few months ago, she said the world is pregnant in the spring. Yeah, >> I love that one. >>

Yeah, it's beautiful. >> Julia Cameron who wrote the artist way. >> Yeah. >> She had a assignment in it which was Called it might have been called the writer state. >> Art estate. >> The artist state. Yeah, I think so. >> And you you took your paper and your pen or your pencil somewhere consciously, intentionally, and you sat there and you captured it on paper and you scribbled. I used to teach my uh grandsons write um classes, writing workshops beginning in uh kindergarten, you know, with poopy first drafts and um but I'd also just Hand

them paper and um and pencils and have them sit there and I just have them make lines across the page. I said, "That's what writing is. It's just making lines, but you're going to learn to write words, you know, and descriptions." And then all the aids and me and the teacher would come by and have them tell us their stories and we would write them for us. But I have them do 10 minutes. They're just scribbling across the page. And that's what the Artist is that you either go to somewhere natural or you go to

a cafe or you go to a cemetery or you go to a library, you know, you you go outside and you pay attention and it is revealing itself to you all of life and you get it down on paper. That's what writing is. >> Do you have a favorite word? I love the word meadow and I love the word glade because it suggests sanctuary and safety. A a ring of trees that you step A a a meadow surrounded by trees that you step inside of that's a secret world. >> Do you have a favorite word?

>> Serendipity. >> Oh, serendipity. >> I love that word. Something about the energy of what serendipity is is embodied in the way that that word is spelled. >> Mhm. It's kind of like a anamanopia but for how the word looks. >> Yep. I love that word too. Yeah. I love the more girly words like meadow and glade. Yeah. >> Tell me about this idea of um kind of squinting. You have an idea that you're beginning to develop and you're kind of squinting at it and it's beginning to form in your head. Mhm. Well, that was

another thing I did with my grandson's classes through all those early grades was I would tell them that if they close their eyes, there's a movie screen Behind their eyes and they can look for a memory or a um imaginary scene between, you know, they are all into superheroes and Pokemon and stuff. And I'd say you can see it on the screen behind your eye. And now when you open your eyes, you can squint at it to bring it back, bring it into focus. and then get it down on paper. If you can't write actually

yet, tell us one of it, one of us, and we're going to get it down on paper for you. So, that's what it is. You squint to kind of bear down on it a little so that you can capture it more precisely. It's funny. I'll tell you one story from the first the kindergarten workshop. My grandson was all excited to get to bring his his nana in and show her off and I was like semi famousamous and they and the teacher got to hold up bird by bird and all that and I did my thing

poopy first drafts and bird by bird and and all of that and I talked for about Half an hour and had them do an exercise with the aids and the teacher and afterwards my grandson came up and he tugged on my sleeve and and he said in this kind of mafia voice he said nana that was terrible and I said What? And he said, "You told us you could help us write a book, but you only taught us how to write one page." H >> And I said, "Honey, that's all I got. But I can

teach you how to write one page." And it's back to what we were Saying that if you get into that cold water, you might as well splash around for a while and you warm up and you're in it, you might as well go for it. Yeah. >> Get a little bit more done than you were agreeing to in the beginning. >> Mhm. But also, that's what a book is. It's just a page >> and then a page. Yeah. And a page. >> It's what life is. A day and a day and a day. >> Yeah.

>> Behind an hour and an hour and an hour. >> You were talking about movies. And I know you love movies. >> I do. >> How have movies informed your writing? >> Movies have informed my entire life. You know, it I think that at least half of what I know about everything I learned from great movies starting at an early age. I mean, when I was coming up in the 50s, it was all Disney movies, most Mostly animals movies and a lot of which end with the mother being killed. So, I I was a very

sensitive and frightened child to begin with. And I and and um but movies have informed everything I know. And they also taught me how you frame things. It starts somewhere and that scene ends somewhere and a c um you get from A to B in one scene and that you don't bite off more than you can chew. You don't bite off more than the the f the viewer can Follow. And Orson Wells said you are creating a happy or sad movie depending on when you decide to end it, you know. And so I learned that

you could end it where there's at a place where there's hope. You could end it and a lot of modern movies end where so ambivalently where you really don't know how people are going to go on from what they've already been through, but they're together. That's usually enough to to to give us um the belief that they're Connected and they're going to be okay for now, which is all any of us ever have, >> that we're okay for now. But movies and the choices directors make about what they show and what they don't show. You

know, it's Miles Davis saying write about the space between the notes. The choices that directors make is um just I mean to watch great movies starting a 100 years ago would give any wouldbe writer all the information they need. >> Talk to me about that Miles Davis quote. What does that mean to you? That's not clear to me. >> It means that we are a very talky species and that we keep trying to capture the meaning of life that we see and what has been most important and impressive to us. But actually the silence, you

know, spiritually it that silence is where it all happens. Mh. >> And um and that we capture in words the Silence. We can capture in words the moment the momentousness of the moment with a few very very cap very carefully chosen words. We can capture years of aging by describing when the next paragraph begins that the old dog's muzzle has gone gray or that the narrator's hair has gone gray. And we capture in quietness and silence the momentousness of just being alive. And that's between the notes that we can Hear. Yeah. Sports announcing is similar.

I was watching the World Baseball Classic recently and uh Venezuela's kind of this underdog. They win and the announcer says something to the effect of the best in the world. >> Yeah. And then it's just complete silence from the announcers for the next two minutes or so and you're just hearing the crowds cheering and the ambient noise of the moment just speaks for itself. And I think of so many of my Favorite moments in sports announcing and it's very very similar. It's three, four, five words and then ambient noise, silence. >> Yeah. And often in

novels, in great novels, something has happened and it stops you on a dime because you think, "Oh no." And if the charact like in Middle March, the I think the greatest novel ever written by George Elliot, there are so many moments where a a character has made a decision to do Something and you just stop in your traction. You think, "Oh no." It's like George George who is in love with Mary. I think it's Mary Darcy. He has proposed to her and the father has accepted because the daughter doesn't really get to. The father has

accepted and George has kind of already lost everything. He's young. He's a young man full of life and he keeps betting on the horses. The father of Mary has lent him some money to help them get started. George Has a good idea. He's going to take the money. Say it's $1,000 or pounds. What's he going to do? He's going to go to the racetrack and double it. And you put down the book. and you say, "Don't go to the racetrack." And you don't almost don't want to go on, but maybe it's going to work out

this time. So, you pick the book back up. But there is a silence where you feel all of our longing, all of the Young man's hope who's going to marry his beloved, going to make a little extra money and surprise her. But you're going, "Please don't go to go home. Go to the race. Go, go to Mary. Go to the river. >> He goes to the racetrack and he loses everything. Well, now what? I don't know. >> He doesn't know. The character doesn't know. No one knows. What are you going to do? You better turn

the page. >> I just had uh the writer and director of a movie called Train Dreams on. >> I cannot wait to see that movie. >> So good. It was just nominated for best picture. Yeah. And there's a really important line in that movie where things are going all right. They're going all right. Not great, but not terribly. And the narrator says, "Little did he know that he would remember these days as some of the best in his life." >> Yeah. >> And it's a really important line because the thing, capital T, capital T, the

thing doesn't happen for another 10, 15 minutes. Mhm. >> But that line when I was watching the movie for the first time, I just sank down in my chair and it was sort of like the gambling and I said, "Oh no, oh no. Oh no." >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um that is the greatest moment in movies and in books where you just have to stop For a minute and catch your breath and tell me a story. Make me care. You're pulling for things to sort out. My husband always says, "Life tilts to the good, but

it's until it does that you're holding your breath." John Lennon famously said that everything sorts out by the end. And if it it hasn't sorted out, it's not the end. And I I live by that because for me in the modern era, it sure hasn't sorted out for the good yet. But it will. John Lennin said, you Know, and my husband said, but while you're waiting, that is the thrill of of being a reader or being a movie watcher is the thrill that everything could just turn to, you know what, maybe it's not going to,

maybe it's not going to. >> Mhm. How do you feel like movies have informed the way that you tell stories? Well, they have told me what I need to know. The a movie is about um the Director is put is setting up lily pads across the pond for the viewer to land on. I need to know this much. It's I need to know this who these people are, how they're together. I need to get them then from here to there. I need to get them out of the city. I need to get them into new

work because that's where this catastrophe is going to begin to unfold. But it isn't. They've shown me, you know, the wonderful short story writer was a Friend of mine, Alice Adams, a New Yorker writer. She told her writing students this great formula that I I wrote about in Bird by Bird. It's AB Dce. And I think that is really the formula that a director might use. A is for action. Something has to happen kind of early on, either in the movie or the book, in the first few pages that we're all together here. in a

small studio in the West Village. And who are these People? Why are we all together right now? Are we of any interest at all? And then B is for the background. Well, here is why we're together. Here is what we had hoped was going to happen today. Um here is the background. That's what a director is going to show you, too. Either through flashback or through the characters um telling each other, reminding each other of what's gone before. D is the development. The Story starts to develop. We hear a knock downstairs on the door. It's

no one no one's supposed to be at the door. We're supposed to have this time together. And and things start developing. And these are lily pads we're landing on. I hear footsteps on the stairs. Things are developing. They don't sound like yours because they have a high heel. They they make a clunkier sound on the stairs. I don't recognize it and I'm scared. So, first what do I do? Well, I hide and Then I hear shuff, you know, abd is the climax. Things come to a head upstairs outside the bathroom door. It's not Jack Nicholson

in the shining with a hatchet trying to get through, but something is happening. It's where all of the minor chords I've played so far >> crash into one another. It's the symbol in the symphony orchestra. That's the climax. The climax means there has to be a killing of some sort. Doesn't have to be a character. It doesn't have to be a Death of a character. Has to be the death of maybe the illusion that the character has lived with their whole life. That has meant they never ever ever can break into full awakening into full

humanity here. Or the the killing of a of a illusion or the killing of a prejudice. The could be the killing of a person. is a killing outside the door at the top at the flight of top of the stairs and then e abd e is the ending. There's that way That I take my readers or in a movie the viewers out of the pond that they have agreed to spend time with me on all along and we get out together on the last page or in the last >> you write those out ABCDE. >>

No, but I've she told me this 40 years ago and I just remember and I' I've told every student I've ever had the abd because it's a great formula. >> What makes for a good ending? a good ending for me. I can't stand if things Add end badly for the main character. I really can't. I'm sorry. Um, what works out for me is that the ending it makes sense and that if I look back over the all the pages before I I might have known. I should have I could have intuitively seen this coming, but

there's a little bit of surprise where I smile and I go, "Yep, that's exactly right. That's really the only thing that could have happened. >> Mhm. >> And um then people are set on their feet. I don't know what's going to happen now, but I love spending 300 pages with them. Every night for eight nights in a row, I got to know these people and I pulled for them. I lost confidence in them. They gave me they gave me faith in them again by making choices and decisions I didn't know they had in them. Mhm.

>> And they moved on just like in real life. >> You know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking about how when you get into a story, whether it's a book, whether it's a movie, one of the things that you're doing is you're surrendering to the author, to the artist, and you're saying, "I trust you." And I think a lot of what a good ending is is you've gotten to the end and there's been a lot of twists and a lot of turns, a lot of things that were Unexpected >> and you say, "That was worth

it. I'm glad I did it. Thank you for knowing me better than I knew myself." >> Yeah. >> And there's times when I really feel kind of betrayed. I'll use a strong word because I think it's warranted where when I am with a body of work and I felt like they didn't honor my heart, they didn't honor my emotions, they didn't they didn't treat me right there. >> Um, and things can still be difficult and they treated me right. So, that's not the point, >> but it's you get to the end and you say, >>

"You knew me better than I knew myself and I'm glad I trusted you." >> Yep. Exactly. I could read you the ending of good writing because this is how I end every talk that I give about writing and about how We write and about who we are as writers. Um I do care that people write well. I do because of my starvation for truth and for the joy of reading. Good writing has been my rock and salvation since my parents first read to me. Tonight when I crawl into bed, a good book is waiting for

me in which I will get lost and found. Neil will be there too also lost in a Book and we will be in peace. Suddenly one of us will exclaim I mean say because rule four says stick with said listen to this and then we'll read a sentence or description to each other and shake our heads at how fine it is. You are fully capable of creating good sentences too with practice, guidance and editor or writing partner and dedication to the craft. trust me on this, but better yet, trust yourself. You've got this. >> Why

do you want to end with that? >> Because I think it's the most important thing um in this book is that everyone can get to be a better and better writer. It's like learning to do anything, whether that's piano or or pickle ball, that you you know, with piano, you don't start off wanting to botch the farmer in the dell. You want to play bronze, but you have to be willing to be able to botch the farmer in the Dell, the cheese stands alone. You know, little by little you can work your way up to

botching your favorite Beatle song to in my life and it's terrible at first and then it gets better and better. Then you could play it for somebody and they go, "Wow, you did it. That was beautiful." And then you work your way up very slowly through Shopan to whoever. And that's what writing is like. You start off and it's way way way too long. And a lot of it is going to end up getting cut or cut On the cutting room floor, but you're doing it. You're doing it every day. You're a writer now and

you're and you're pursuing the writer's life and you're sitting at the feet of the masters and you're reading all of the writers at work in the Paris review series. You're writing you're reading all of those once a week and you are corresponding with other writers and you're sharing your work with another writer who you found and they're sharing Their work with you and you're helping each other get better and better and you're trying slightly harder things and slightly harder things. You're learning to take a little criticism and you're sticking to the fact that it's your

work and you're the final arbiter of of it and you're doing it like the Nike ad. You just do it. >> You stop not writing. You >> stop not writing. >> How did you deal with criticism Throughout your life? >> I hate criticism. I am so in the wrong business. But it has always hurt me. Always. Like the first review the first reviews I got were for this book I wrote about my father's illness a novel called Hard Laughter and the first reviews I got and this is in the 1980 I arrived by mail from

my agent they're Publishers Weekly and Kirkus and they're terrible >> the reviews >> the terrible reviews and um luckily I'm Still drinking at the time but they both say that whatever meager charms the book possessed were harmed by the writer show coffee overkill and that >> yeah that'll make you tip the bottle >> and that made me tip the bottle and it also rings through the chamber of my mind. I no longer after that was show was doing show off they overkill of trying to be funny. Started editing myself in a much much different way.

But I have gotten criticized every book and You know this good writing is my 21st book and you now there are no reviews so you hardly have to worry about the bad reviews. Now you just worry about neglect. But um the criticism is very hard for me to take. Now Neil and I for 10 years have been editing each other and we have a policy that you edit edit with a sandwich with a sandwich form which is you come over to where the other person is and you said I I love this. This is Going

to be great. I don't think your lead works. I actually don't think the first couple paragraphs work. But at the very bottom of page one when that paragraph starts that's where you have hooked me in. I don't think the ending works. All endings are way before the ending you've presented there. With a an essay, there may be a page and a half earlier. With a book, they could be 13 pages earlier. But sometimes Neil has come in, he's been in a hurry and he Started with exactly what's wrong with it, what I need to fix.

And some once or twice I've cried and then he he goes, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I really love it. It's just the the beginning is just so confused and I really think you're just clearing your throat, those first two graphs." and take them out. Trust me. And um and criticism is you know what it's like. It it hurts a little bit, but one of the the um rules in good writing is trust good editors. You know, worship Good editors. Worship a good writing partner because they're saving you from yourself. >> Mhm. >> From your blind

spots, from your, you know, your weird little habits that you think are so charming that, no offense, really aren't. Have there been times when you've when you've overreacted to criticism and so there was a critic who came in, they said this, and you said, "Oh my Goodness, they're right." And then you found that you had actually lost a sense of yourself in the process. Oh yeah. >> And basically had to integrate that criticism into your craft to say, you know what, people will criticize me for that, but that's who I am. That's that's who I

want to be. >> Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I could give you 20 examples of very very important crit uh book reviews that were really devastating. Like I got one, this is 10, Not quite 10 years ago for a book. It might have been the book on either hope or mercy. It was Hallelujah Anyway, and it was this essays on spirituality and it was very human. It was very funny. It was really loved. It was a huge bestseller. And the and the reviewer in the Chicago Tribune said um that the book made her feel like she

was in the backyard with one of the Kardashians. >> Oo. Huh. That's strange. >> And I wanted to write back, but you Don't get to that no one had ever heard of her or was likely to, right? But I couldn't do that because you don't get to respond to reviews. But I've gotten re But then that made me think, wait a minute. And then I thought um the way I write is the way I want to write. And you can tell because what I'm publishing, you know, and by and by the time I've written something,

it's gone through so many washes. Three or four drops from me, the editorial response, Me making those changes, going back to the editor, doing another round of edit. Well, >> you ever feel like the writing gets overedited? >> No. No. I'm just desperately grateful. desperately grateful for I have a great editor at at my house and um you know then you go through the copy editor and and the copy editor may have be have tiny control issues and um be marking stuff like for I'll tell you one example I wrote a book called Joe Jones

my second novel and in it takes place at a cafe broken down dive really on the Pedaluma River and two teenagers say at the cash register I'm going to have to pay you like in total dimes. Well, that was a line I had heard and scribbled down. I said to them, "Wait one second." And I wrote it down. Now, that's a beautiful line cuz that's rhythm and blues, right? >> I'm going to have to pay you like in Total dimes. >> Now, the copy editor read it and and and crossed it out and added, "I'm

going to pay you totally in dimes." and I had to go back and say, "No, this here this ends is I'm going to pay you like in total dime." So, yeah. So, yeah, you know, but for the most part, I am desperately grateful for my editors. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um, a word that you use a lot is um is Reverence. And we're talking about wow a little bit before, but can you explain what reverence? Why you use that word? Well, reverence is about um agreeing to be awakened, you know, and to stop hitting

the snooze button and to keep asking yourself, how alive am I willing to be? Well, it hurts to be fully alive. It means you have taken off some of your armor and you're willing to be real and human with people, which you certainly were not raised to be. You were raised To be impressive and to do well and for every to try to get everybody with any amount of power or say to to like you and to grade you and to and to move you up the ranks, right? And so to agree to be fully

reverent, to be fully alive means that you are stepping into the realm of reverence, of breath, of the moment, of real, of being, of your own beingness, and the world, as you quoted the other writer, being pregnant right now for you. New life. Pregnancy is About new life. We've gone through the death. We've gone through the death in the winter. And it means that wow, we're back. I can take off some of these heavy clothes metaphorically and be here. >> I'm thinking of the word porous. >> Yeah. We're going to be poor. We're going to

be permeable. We're going to take off the armor. >> Yeah. But the key point, I think, of what you were saying is a certain willingness to be hurt. certain Willingness to be hurt in the interest of the great gift of being here as fully alive and as fully human as we can manage. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Annie. >> Thank you so much.