Bird by Bird

One of my favorite books about writing that I dip into often is Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. The story associated with the title of the book could easily have come out of my own childhood:

" Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

Since the "bird by bird" approach seems to work well for me, my wife Mary and daughter Sophie have started a tradition of presenting me with a new "bird" every time I finish a book project and turn in the final artwork.

Here's a sampling from my collection: a 'chicken' clock, a tin with a 'blackbird tea' label that I keep my brushes in, they even made a pysanky egg one year when I finished Eat Your Peas, Ivy Louise -- if you look closely, you might be able to see that the little birds on the egg are carrying peas in their beaks.