Kim Gentes - worship leader and writer

Of late, I have been reading more books on, ironically, writing. A friend recommended one to me which I hadn't heard of. It was Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life". As I began it, I was warmed by her whimsical style and insightful prose. But soon enough, I was getting hungry for the "meat" of a writer "advice" book. Then it hit me. Her device to teach the writing life was to example it, not dictate its proofs in three-point style.

I am a simple kind of thinker in this regard, as my natural tendency is to take everyone at their word. She had titled the book "The Writing Life", and I thus assumed she would explain it in the book. I wouldn't have expected her to live it. But this is what Annie Dillard does. She explores with narrative prose the way her own life has been fashioned by its conversations, moments, people and events. She arranges those as elements of a real story- her story- and allows you to look in and see if it reflects something of the human soul which can ignite your own writing life. And it does.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of points that could fill a "tips and thoughts for aspiring writers" textbook, and they are distributed liberally throughout the pages of this work. But Dillard knows that they way the stick to us is to pair them with our hearts through her own well written words. The first of such moments for me happened when I was almost fumbling through the early chapters and one of those word-sculpted moments hit me square across the mind-

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading—that is a good life.1

Another exceptional moment in the book was the author's no-nonsense advice on a writer's audience-

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?2

And just a page later, another assault of absolute unrelenting reality-

A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?” “Well,” the writer said, “I don’t know…. Do you like sentences?” The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am twenty years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, of course, he could begin, like a joyful painter I knew. I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, “I liked the smell of the paint.”3

"The Writing Life" has plenty of great advice for writers, but it delivers its message in clearly measured portions. In between those servings is a beautiful and vulnerable style that presents some of Dillard's life, and especially in this book, the artistic inspiration that she experienced through the art (if we can call it that) and life of stunt pilot Dave Rahm. There are plenty of other life circumstances that Dillard exposes in her book, but it is on the creativity and eventual consumation of the life of Rahm that the book culminates. In a way, she continues teaching us, honors her experience with her friend, and writes a tribute to him all in single stream of trailing and reflective narrative flowing through this book.

You will get several points of importance for understanding "The Writing Life" in this book, but along the way Dillard seems more concerned that you actually live and experience it than recite a formula for its vocational success. A thoughtful, uplighting and good book.

Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/10x9sxP

Review by Kim Gentes

1. Dillard, Annie (2009-10-13). The Writing Life (pp. 32-33). Harper Perennial. Kindle Edition.

2. Ibid., p. 68

3. Ibid., p. 70