Hardly a "how-to" book, the most striking thing about Dillard's The Writing Life is the way in which the text demonstrates good writing. It is as if an artist were to teach us how to paint by offering up a great painting. Dillard's approach is philosophical: "If he had noticed how he felt, he could not have done the work" and "Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block." Rarely didactic, Dillard does sometimes tell us what not to do: "Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book; give it, give it all, give it now." She also reminds us not to be precious with our writing--our words are not written upon a gilded page: "--your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares about whether you do it well, or ever." Dillard humbles us, here, by pointing out that writing should not be a self-serving, ego driven act--we must not lose sight of the reader.
It never occurred to me that re-reading one's work too often can be counterproductive, yet I can see how doing so can falsely render the writing true. Dillard also cautions us against editing as we write, something I know I'm sometimes guilty of. Thoreau's dog-with-a-bone metaphor coupled with Dillard's directive to "probe and search each object in a piece of art" got me thinking about the tenacity with which I write and the need to examine the weight of each word, for it is so easy to "course over' what is written. This brings me to Dillard's own Thoreauesque existence where she lives and works in a shed or cottage--a privileged arrangement that few writers have the time or resources to imitate. I wish she had written more on how this experience impacted her writing. Finally, The Writing Life shifts gears at Chapter 7 where metaphor is overdrawn, Dillard forgets the reader, and gets lost in her own language like Dave Rahm and his stunt plane swirls.
It never occurred to me that re-reading one's work too often can be counterproductive, yet I can see how doing so can falsely render the writing true. Dillard also cautions us against editing as we write, something I know I'm sometimes guilty of. Thoreau's dog-with-a-bone metaphor coupled with Dillard's directive to "probe and search each object in a piece of art" got me thinking about the tenacity with which I write and the need to examine the weight of each word, for it is so easy to "course over' what is written. This brings me to Dillard's own Thoreauesque existence where she lives and works in a shed or cottage--a privileged arrangement that few writers have the time or resources to imitate. I wish she had written more on how this experience impacted her writing. Finally, The Writing Life shifts gears at Chapter 7 where metaphor is overdrawn, Dillard forgets the reader, and gets lost in her own language like Dave Rahm and his stunt plane swirls.
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