Bird By Bird Analysis

In the documentary Bird by Bird, the most important thing Anne Lamott says about writing is that when you are writing you are writing on borrowed time. It’s true that people’s lives are very short in comparison to the duration of the entire world. Human existence is a small blip on the timeline of the earth, but to us it feels much longer and far more significant. Channeling that idea of human existence down to just one person, it almost feels like your life is on a deadline and you have to work fast to get the things you want to do done. Some people might even feel compelled to focus on only one thing and do that for their whole lives. However, you cannot focus only on what you want to do; you have to allocate time to other things and learn how to keep a balanced lifestyle. This of course means that the time you have to do what you want is even slimmer. When writing a novel, short story, article, poem, etc., you have to experience life in order to draw in some humanity into your piece. In the documentary, …show more content…
You have to make your experiences count and let them become a part of your writing to become a better writer. Readers can see through a manufactured emotion. A writer needs to develop their repertoire of experience so that readers can sense that a writer knows what they are writing about. This is how fictional media has remained relevant to this day, by exploring the multifaceted nature of people. Beyond writing though, this idea of borrowed time is certainly not a new concept, but one that nonetheless requires repeating. Everyone knows that their life will end at some point, so it is up to them to make their time count. If you remember that, life becomes a little easier to manage and to put into perspective. Every day is a new opportunity to experience all that life has to offer. That is why I say that the idea of borrowed time is the most important thing she says about