A delightful, painful, whimsical, glorious read for writers seeking to spend the majority of their lives arranging words on a page.

This is a short collection of beautifully written essays that don’t seem to have a point. Only about a quarter of this book is really about “writing life”. That section is nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s getting your ass in the chair and writing and looking around. Nothing about the publicity tours, the writer’s block, the interactions with an editor, with fans, the relationship changes with a family (i.e. what to say during gatherings where you just want people to buy it)

The rest is about… something else. I guess it’s the things you think about when you should be writing but you’re not. Like how cold your cabin is. Or what that lumberjack is doing over in the distance. Mostly it’s stories that don’t go anywhere, like the time I had to catch the train to Shelbyville and I had to tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. There’s something “metaphysical” about the book, that it’s about more life and less writing.

And the problem was I couldn’t follow it. I got the sense this is something the author wrote as an exercise in-between books. In other words, it didn’t meet my expectations. I’m not sure who this book is for but it’s not for writers.

I’ve read dozens of books about writing over the years, maybe hundreds. Textbooks, how-tos, memoirs, and more. And I like nearly all of them. This is the first I can remember that I couldn’t appreciate. The short book consists mainly of meditative, extended metaphors about writing and rambling stories with not much justification other than a “writing is like this, too” conclusion. It seemed to me pretentious and a little self-serving, and I didn’t find much substance or anything to take away.

In one section, writing is compared with wrestling with an alligator. Dillard then recounts an alligator wrestling match in Florida in front of a paying crowd. A young man grappled with the alligator, belly to belly, until both man and beast disappeared beneath the surface of the water. Then bubbles came up; then blood; then the water stilled. The crowd of onlookers quietly dispersed. “This is your life. You are a Seminole alligator wrestler.” Really makes you want to be a writer, eh?

I listened to the audio, which could be part of the problem. I wasn’t keen on the narration (not the author); it sounded inauthentic to me. Reading the text for myself might result in a different experience.

This isn't really a memoir, but it is the author's discussion of her own life as a writer, so this is the best label I could come up with. Her experience of writing and mine are quite different, so that was interesting!

Worth it for this gem alone:
“Another day, another dollar; fourteen hours on snowshoes and wish I had pie.” – from a Maine trapper’s diary.

This book caught me by surprise by how much I enjoyed it. I'm no "writer". I have no craft and don't claim any or expect to gain any in the future. I feared that the slender volume might either be: (A) a tediously boring how-to book, filled with rules, like "Always have fresh typewriter ribbon" or "Use only #3 pencils", or (B) mind-numbingly esoteric and touchy-feely in reaching writing nirvana. Amazingly and beautifully so, it was neither. One could argue that the book is not so much a treatise on writing but a collection of essays, but it felt very, very connected to me. Early sections could be described as a bit "how-to", or more precisely, how-it-is, to write, that is, seriously write, and, if the author is to be believed, it's quite painful. But then, later sections belie that impression in remarkably vivid ways. I was especially impressed by a story the author relates about being told a story by another writer, involving rowing a boat in waters in which I have actually kayaked in myself. Touching on something I was so familiar with helped draw me in, but the point made by the story was 100% spot on for making its point. This slim work is very much worth the time for anyone who thrives on good writing.