Rating: 
Summary: The Writing Life
Review: "This book recounts what the actual process of writing feels like-feels like inside the mind at work. It tells a complex story. It offers bits of technical information. It shows the writer teetering at the tip of the line of words. This is not a meditation-God save us from meditations-but a dispatch from the desk. It is all about work." This is how Anne Dillard describes her book, The Writing Life. The Writing Life is a narrative, which goes into the life of a writer, and explains the ins and outs of what a writer needs to do to have a successful book. During the information given in this book about writers, it is interrupted every so often by a writer telling their own personal story; whether it being a success or failure. This is a phenomenal resource for all perspective writers, as well as professionals, although I feel as though it lacks certain characteristics. It gives a detailed description of the writing process, but in a straight voice, adding no significance to the book, except support by having examples from other writers. This book does not just portray the "goods" of writing, but it explains the struggles one must go through to reach the highest peak of success; publication. I feel that this book is a good piece of reference material, but for enjoyment, I would stick with the newspaper.
Rating: 
Summary: Annie Dillard's frank discussion.........
Review: .....of writing and her own experiences with the craft. As an aspiring creatve writer, I found Dillard's discussion of her own struggles as a writer to be honest and quite recognizable. Writing anything from a short story to a novel to a collection of poems or essays requires an amazing amount of energy and an almost unrivaled ability to give of oneself. Getting up that energy and tapping the self produce the agony writers so often experience. What I didn't expect was to read about Dillard's "solution", if you will, to such problems. Distraction, and the subsequent problems it produces when trying to create quality prose, seem to be Dillard's greatest enemy. Who could tell that Annie, for example wrote "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" while cooped up? That's unbelievable! Dillard, it seems, writes best when alone in a small, windowless room where, without any stimulation to distract her, she is forced to focus on her writing. It is during such times that she produces her most beautiful and memorable work. This is a profound lesson that I am trying to find the discipline to follow. Only then, will my work be as good as it can be. I thank Annie Dillard for sharing and for her honesty.
Rating: 
Summary: The Writing Life
Review: Above all else, this book is a wonderful parable about living. In it, writing is a metaphor for life. It could readily have been named, "The Living Life," for it is full of courage, wonder, and humility. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: The Writing Life
Review: Above all else, this book is a wonderful parable about living. In it, writing is a metaphor for life. It could readily have been named, "The Living Life," for it is full of courage, wonder, and humility. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: Above all, this book will help any aspiring writer to conquer his or her own fears about "the writing life". It always appears that "we" are the only one's that are left staring into our blank, white screens with no thoughts on what we are about to write. Well, we are proved wrong. Annie Dillard tells and takes us through her own experiences about writing, past and present.
Regardless of the type of writing you are involved in, this book will certainly give you the inspiration to continue on what seems to be a dark and narrow road.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: Above all, this book will help any aspiring writer to conquer his or her own fears about "the writing life". It always appears that "we" are the only one's that are left staring into our blank, white screens with no thoughts on what we are about to write. Well, we are proved wrong. Annie Dillard tells and takes us through her own experiences about writing, past and present.
Regardless of the type of writing you are involved in, this book will certainly give you the inspiration to continue on what seems to be a dark and narrow road.
Rating:
Summary: Refusing to be pigeon-holed
Review: All of the negative reviews of this book I've seen so far mention that it's not a "how-to" book. Very good! You got the point. Dillard writes about writing, what it means to write, what happens when you write. Sure, there are insights into writing that others may use just as a book about someone's life might produce some insights into living. However, this book never claims and never is a "how-to" book. There are enough cheezy "here are the secrets to writing" out there; Dillard knew better than to add to the drivel. Instead she gives us a brilliant look at the life that one writer leads. Don't judge this book for being something that it isn't. That would be like saying an orange didn't perform so well at being pasta.
Rating:
Summary: The Writing Life is for anyone who wants to write -- or live
Review: Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life" is probably most appreciated by the professional writer, who will admire and relate to Dillard's penetrating and insightful thoughts on the subject of writing. But this is a book for anyone who has a passion for anything. Dillard transcends the mere avocation of putting words on paper to present a simple, slim volume that represents a lust for life. Every word in "A Writing Life" detonates. A writer should keep this book handy as a wayward sinner should keep a Bible.
Rating:
Summary: Show not tell -- Word tapestry --Art
Review: Annie Dillard's The Writing Life is as economical a bit of art within 112 pages as Holy the Firm.
As clear a piece of imigry as Teaching A Stone to Talk. Life is a tender piece of show not tell. Dillard explains by weaving words and art and story into a readers ear and mind and heart, and gently stitches soul into the piece. Tidbits include: "I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better..." "The writer studies literature, not the world. He lives in the world; he cannot miss it. If he has ever bought a hamburger, or taken a commercial airplane flight, he spares his readers a report of his experience. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know."
Interspersed with stories of inchworms, moths, ocean currents, artists and phantom psychotic chess opponents she weaves a fine tapestry of word upon a backdrop of seaside cabins and rain.
Rating:
Summary: Show not tell -- Word tapestry --Art
Review: Annie Dillard's The Writing Life is as economical a bit of art within 112 pages as Holy the Firm.
As clear a piece of imigry as Teaching A Stone to Talk. Life is a tender piece of show not tell. Dillard explains by weaving words and art and story into a readers ear and mind and heart, and gently stitches soul into the piece. Tidbits include: "I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better..." "The writer studies literature, not the world. He lives in the world; he cannot miss it. If he has ever bought a hamburger, or taken a commercial airplane flight, he spares his readers a report of his experience. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know."
Interspersed with stories of inchworms, moths, ocean currents, artists and phantom psychotic chess opponents she weaves a fine tapestry of word upon a backdrop of seaside cabins and rain.
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