I read this on a recommendation, and it was a good one. Plenty of reinforcements and some new ways of looking at things; a good companion to the Colum McCann one. A resonant extract:
If something inside you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it.And a little summary laundry list of some of Lamott's 'things she knows about writing': Short assignments, shitty first drafts, one-inch picture frames, Polaroids, messes, mistakes, partners, where 'Polaroids' is shorthand for the way that a piece slowly develops as you work on it, its true subject maybe only gradually revealing itself as something very different than where you started with your attention.
