The Wit and Wisdom of Annie Dillard

Reading Annie Dillard's "Introduction: Notes for Young Writers" was a similar experience for me as was reading The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain. The primary differences are length--Dillard notes are much shorter than the collection of Mark Twain's; subject--Dillard solely about writing, save the one point on voting; and focus--Twain's collection has a much heavier emphasis on wit, while Dillard's is more wisdom, or advice.

We've either heard most of the advice that Dillard gives us as writers in this piece or are able to recognize it as common sense. Yet the funny thing about common sense is that we often don't follow it. Most of the rules are simple and memorable. Don't do this. Do that. Remember to. Yet while I see Dillard's short advices as true and wise, I can't help but wonder why I fail to follow many of them.

As we can do with many things, it is easy to excuse our inactions, especially with the ultimate roadblock: time (or lack of it). But it's no excuse. If we are serious about writing, we cannot afford to say "we don't have time." Whatever the activity--reading, writing, studying grammar, revising, editing--we can make the time if we need to.

There were many pieces of advice that stood out. The most important one, however, was the last one: "You need to know these things somewhere in the back of your mind, and you need to forget about them and write whatever you're going to write." To me, it sums up most of the advice for writers: just do it.

-Alexander Hirata