Rating: 
Summary: The Writing Life. (Dillard's not yours)
Review: If like me, you thought this title held real pragmatic promise for aspiring writers, you may be disappointed, as I was, to reach the end but feeling not much the wiser for doing so.
I had been looking for an insightful guide to the mechanics of writing and among the competition this seemed the best bet. Respecting Dillard's past work gave me some genuine reason for hope that I would not be disappointed in her approach. I was also expectant of tapping that same creative and highly metaphorical vein that runs through Dillard's prose.
Perhaps you are looking for the same river. However, one has to prospect ruthlessly to find gold near the surface in The Writing Life. Like her other works, one has to go deeper than the seam to find the gem among the ordinary grit. As far as helpful material for the writer is concerned, even the deep yielded little for me. The exception to this is, is undoubtedly Chapter 5, where she finally comes the nearest to translating her thoughts into the vernacular of the general reader by highlighting the external factors that form the writer's style and vision. Her observations and comments here do shed some light on her own inimitable way of writing and also give light into a book, that up to that point, had me groping for other 'light' relief. The rest deals more with the cause and effect of (her) writing, rather than rooting out causes and artistically penning the effects.
Despite its highly anecdotal and at times self-indulgent structure, The Writing Life does allow you to enter some of Dillard's wrestling to bring her heart to her subject matter, a task she executes consistently with vivacity and conviction. Like her other writings, it is Dillard bringing all those loose elements into a contained whole and finding her own voice to articulate the mystical process. Don't' get me wrong; I admire Annie Dillard and her style. 'Pilgrim At Tinker Creek' forced me to live life, not merely exist in it and for that and her other books, I am grateful.
As an additional reader to the Dillard library I strongly recommend it. But, it is more accurate to frame it as, 'Dillard: The Writer', rather than, 'Dillard's Guide To Writing', or the title it now wears. By it on the former premise and you will discover much of the forming of Dillard and the natural rhythm that permeates her writing. By it on the later, as a pragmatic, 'how-to' and you will know how she does it, but still be left asking a lot of the fundamental questions of 'how'.
Rating: 
Summary: Annie Dillard gave me hope and faith
Review: If someone of Annie Dillard's stature can write like this while claiming to abhor the whole process, then there's hope for all of us writers. Writing is a lonely process, as I quickly learned when I began writing my memoir, Baby Catcher (Scribner 2002). It helped considerably to know that the agonizing moments I experienced while trying to craft just the right phrase, the perfect sentence, the hang-together paragraph were shared by Ms. Dillard and, by extension I suspect, most other serious writers as well.
As we authors and as-yet unpublished writers sit alone and get RST of wrists and fingers and forearms from incessant pounding of the keyboard, staring out the window at a telephone wire or a bare tree or a garage wall, it's immeasurably helpful to know that Annie Dillard is sitting in a remote cabin somewhere, doing the same thing. It makes it possible to go on and get down to the business of writing for yet another day.
Now: if only I could write as beautifully and with such seeming lack of effort as she does...
Rating: 
Summary: One writer's perspective
Review: In "The Writing Life," Annie Dillard reflects on the writer's craft and calling. This short book takes the form of an extended essay that is divided into several chapters. Dillard writes about the physical places in which she has actually written her work. Other topics include the relationship of the writer's vision to the actual fruits of her labor ("this changeling, this bastard"); the question of whether to write "one big book" or a series of short pieces; and a writer's relationship to the work of preceding writers. Along the way Dillard invokes the names of many other writers: Henry James, Octavio Paz, Helen Keller, Jack London, Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, etc.The final chapters deal with two people she has known: one a painter, one a stunt pilot; their crafts could be seen as metaphors for writing. I enjoyed "The Writing Life." Although at times I found Dillard's prose a bit self-indulgent, overall I found the book to be a thoughtful and well-written meditation.
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Summary: Poetry Avoidance and Fear
Review: Most writers avoid writing because they are afraid. My writing career came to an abrupt pause in high school when a English teacher read my anon piece and proclaimed it poetry without an explanation. What did that mean? Annie Dillard's Writing Life speaks to the poet in me. It speaks to the writer's avoidance I see in myself and fellow writers. It talks of other writer's who have also had such difficulties. It talks about writer's writing spaces. It told me how writers that I admired were able to hold down normal jobs and still be prolific writers. I consume books about writing, this is the only book, small and sweet which spoke to my heart. I bought it because it was a book about writing, but found that it was a book about life.
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Summary: Poetry is abundant, sincerity is lacking
Review: My title just about sums it up. Annie Dillard uses very cute metaphors and word choice to convey her relationship with writing, but the whole thing fails to ring true. Her claims that she hates writing are contradicted by her sickeningly happy, cloud-borne tone; her metaphors are interesting but fall apart when examined as actual metaphors for writing. This work seems like an author with a contract trying to fill up 100 pages with as many ways to state "Writing is hard" as she can. She succeeds in fooling many of her readers into thinking she is saying something interesting or sincere. But I read her pretentious pontifications and I'm not impressed.
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Summary: A Writer's Pick-Me-Up
Review: Occasionally I get very depressed and consider throwing away all of my writing. It's banal, it's trite, it's unreadable. When this mood hits me, I reach for a few books that always seem to put me back on track and remind me why I write in the first place. Annie's Dillard's "The Writing Life" is one of these books. You can open the book up to any point and get a blast of concentrated beauty. This book reads more like a 111 page prose poem with section breaks, but still manages to empart a lot of wisdom. Distractions kill momentum. Leaving a work in progress unsupervised kills momentum. Writing retreats are good for the work. There is beauty in everything. Writing is an identity. I'm sure that everyone who writes will get something different out of this book. People who don't write may get a deeper understanding of those who do. Keep this book close and read it whenever your writing begins to overwhelm you. People who don't write, but love someone who does: Keep this book close and read it every time you forget why that person you love drives themselves and you crazy with their writing. Annie Dillard describes the passion and makes it clear that, although sometimes painful and confusing, "The Writing Life" can be a wonderful and spiritually satisfying experience.
Rating:
Summary: "I Was Wrestling Inside a Sentence..."
Review: Skills are those little beasts we have conquered, tamed into submission, and made our own, but instinct... that is that inner whisper that will not be quiet, even when we beg. It points us toward the light, every time. Its sound raises the little hairs on the back of our necks. Even when we choose not to listen - it speaks, it taunts with its truth.
Annie Dillard is, to me, as a writer, as a woman, very much like that inner whisper of truth. She points me to the light, every time. Her words raise the little hairs on the back of my neck. When my creativity runs bone dry, I pick up a Dillard book - and The Writing Life is almost always first off my shelf - and I hear that whisper again.
And oh, how delicious, to know that a writer such as Dillard can run just as bone dry, be just as tormented a writer's soul as the "common" rest of us.
Rating: 
Summary: A decent read, but it won't change your life
Review: The Boston Globe calls Annie Dillard's The Writing Life a "small and brilliant guidebook to the landscape of a writer's task...." Well, what the book is in fact is a short collection of the author's observations on writing and a bunch of other things: the seventh and final chapter of the book, for example, 19 of the book's 111 pages, has to do with a stunt pilot/geologist from Washington State with whom Dillard once went flying. Dillard's book reads like a series of journal entries, which may indeed have been its origin. Some of the entries are amusing, for example Dillard's description of her weeks-long, late-night chess game with an unknown opponent who, she briefly thinks, just might be the diaper-clad but otherwise naked baby she finds hovering around the board one evening. But some of the entries are mere poetic, well, nonsense: "The line of words is a fiber optic, flexible as wire; it illumines the path just before its fragile tip. You probe with it, delicate as a worm." The Writing Life cannot, I should think, be of any practical benefit to writers. And it is neither a "guidebook" nor a particularly inspiring piece of prose, however much the blurbists may rave. But it is intermittently interesting, and, after all, it is a very quick read.
Rating:
Summary: A decent read, but it won't change your life
Review: The Boston Globe calls Annie Dillard's The Writing Life a "small and brilliant guidebook to the landscape of a writer's task...." Well, what the book is in fact is a short collection of the author's observations on writing and a bunch of other things: the seventh and final chapter of the book, for example, 19 of the book's 111 pages, has to do with a stunt pilot/geologist from Washington State with whom Dillard once went flying. Dillard's book reads like a series of journal entries, which may indeed have been its origin. Some of the entries are amusing, for example Dillard's description of her weeks-long, late-night chess game with an unknown opponent who, she briefly thinks, just might be the diaper-clad but otherwise naked baby she finds hovering around the board one evening. But some of the entries are mere poetic, well, nonsense: "The line of words is a fiber optic, flexible as wire; it illumines the path just before its fragile tip. You probe with it, delicate as a worm." The Writing Life cannot, I should think, be of any practical benefit to writers. And it is neither a "guidebook" nor a particularly inspiring piece of prose, however much the blurbists may rave. But it is intermittently interesting, and, after all, it is a very quick read.
Rating:
Summary: A Bit of Inspiration, Not Advice
Review: The Writing Life is filled with beautiful language, and many thoughts that any writer can relate to, but it is no how-to guide. Those who are looking for something to give practical guidance had best look elsewhere. Dillard descibes what it is like to be a writer - what a writer may think (or need to think). The book offers inspiration, but little practical help. However, for those who are looking for a little pick-me-up, Dillard's book is ideal. This book would also interest avid readers who would like to see inside the mind of a writer and get some understanding of what the writing process can really be like.
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