# The Writing Life ### Written by [[Annie Dillard]] © 1989 by Annie Dillard > [!INFO]- **Motive on [[2022-06-02]]:** To be a better writer and find some comfort in the company of an author who's been at it a while. **Rediscovery:** Useful for finding hope when [[R1 Living with Depression 20210424|depressed]], lifestyle and principle advice for [[R2.21 Writing Projects Index with Summaries 20150225]]/[[Writing Practice]], appreciate fine writing. > [!SUMMARY]- > Through prose and poetry, Annie Dillard reflects on a life of living twice as she recounts the sometimes dull, sometimes elating compulsion to write things down, and the comforts, frustrations, joys, and sorrows that come with such a calling. --- - [[X2 A writer writes many books. In each book, he intended several urgent and vivid points, many of which he sacrificed as the book's form hardened. 20211225|A line of words]] - [[X2 Writers try to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your lifespan plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration in the company of pieces of paper 20211225|All the people in the world have the same emotions. All just want to do something good for this earth.]] - [[X1 Know thyself, know the world 20210408|Know thyself, know the world]] - [[X2 The blank page will teach you to write. 20211225|Learning to write]] - [[X2 Life is composed of days 20211014|Life is composed of days]] - [[X2 Do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. But skip a visit or two, and a work in progress will turn feral on you. 20211225|Lions and dying friends]] - [[X2 Original writing fashions a form, so there is good reason to perfect a piece as it progresses, but the true shape of that form only becomes apparent as it proceeds, so there is also good reason not to. 20211225|Perfecting work]] - [[X2 If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight. 20211225|Quotation]] - [[X2 Write like you're splitting wood—aim at the chopping block, not the wood 20211225|Splitting Wood]] - [[X2 "The Writing Life" Subtitle 20211225|"The Writing Life" Subtitle]] - [[X2 The writer's work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps then and their desk in midair 20211225|The Engine of Belief]] - [[X2 Works of creation are merely the seting constructed around the jewel of a new idea 20211225|The Jewel of a New Idea]] - [[X2 The latest version of a literary work begins somewhere in the work's middle, and hardens toward the end. No one cares what it cost the writer personally 20211225|Throwing work away and sentimental writing]] - [[X2 Writing is like towing a log against a current 20211225|Towing a log]] - [[X2 The writer must solve two problems when writing every book—"Can it be done?" and, "Can I do it?" 20211225|Two Problems of Writing]] - [[X2 What to Write About 20211225|What to write about]] - [[X2 A Writer's Freedom 20211225|Writer's Freedom]] - [[X2 Writers and the Real World 20211225|Writers and the Real World]] - [[X2 Writers are like inchworms, constantly "finding" the end of their existence, then finding purchase a moment later 20211225|Writers are like inchworms]]