Bird by Bird

Part one

Perfectionism

Trying to be perfect when you are writing is something you want to stay away from. Nothing is ever going to be perfect so do not waste your time obsessing over things that no one will notice. Perfectionism prevents you from writing a shitty first draft which you end up losing a helpful base for your paper. A helpful way to stop perfectionism is to rely on God. Everything happens for a reason and God will never put you through something you cannot handle. If you do not believe in God, you need to learn how to encourage yourself and to not beat yourself up. Do not get stuck trying to be perfect when writing. Just let the words flow out of you and take it from there.

School Lunches

School lunches produce the same feelings as when you write. The worrying, anxiety and stressfulness are all apart of writing just like lunches. When someone is stuck during the writing process, she would have them write about something they know such as school lunches. She found it would get kids distracted and happier. She would tell them to write everything down just like the use of shitty drafts and choose what they want to keep and what they want to change. It is effective because it lets you focus on just getting ideas down and to keep writing because you can always make it better later.

Polaroids

The author compares writing a story to taking a picture on a Polaroid camera. Because when you take a picture you have to wait for it to develop. You never know how the picture is going to turn out. Just like when you write, you never really know how the story is going to end up. You just need to get a main idea and make the story clearer as it develops.

Character

You need to develop strong characteristics in your characters. They all have some emotional trauma or burden that they carry them. It is what drives them to be who they are. You need to know each character in your story to truly be in their shoes. Knowing small details like how they stand or the facial expressions they make in certain situations to write stuff from their point of view.