Bird by Bird

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

A wise old classic bit of writing advice from the early 1990s. The culture around books and publishing has changed since then, but the existential dilemma of why one might want to spill out ones stories for a world that is largely unappreciative remains relevant. Every chapter is charged with her confessional vignettes, usually about loss and defeat and wrongheadedness which she includes to serve as lessons to the naive student. I didn't want just to skim through this quickly but had to take my time to feel my way though the lessons she gives.