The Writing Life

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1989

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Key Figures

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is the author and narrator of The Writing Life who appears in the book as an experienced writer offering advice, consolation, and encouragement to her readers. At the time of publishing, Dillard was an established, award-winning author and professor of writing at various colleges. Dillard was born April 30, 1945, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but she has lived all over the United States during her career—from Roanoke, Virginia to the remote Lummi Island in Washington. For much of the book, Dillard looks back at her early writing career around the time she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and other early nonfiction works. In The Writing Life, Dillard focuses heavily on where she wrote, as her experiences in each environment helped to inform the topics she wrote about. She occasionally mentions friends and family who were with her at the time—neighbors and an unnamed husband—but because her advice and analysis of writing centers so deeply on the internal world, Dillard does not delve profoundly into the dynamics of these relationships.

Due to the vignette-like structure of the book and the ambiguous genre, the reader does not receive much concrete biographical or physical information about Dillard. She shares stories about “the fanaticism of [her] twenties” (37), but details are vague, highlighting her view that the repetitiveness of routine can make days a “blurred” but “powerful pattern” (32) of indistinctness. She chooses to highlight her emotions over objective facts in her stories, and she rounds out her topics with symbolic anecdotes to strengthen her opinions. Dillard frequently quotes from other authors—especially Henry David Thoreau, whom she wrote her master’s thesis on—displaying her love of learning and unashamed influence in action.

Dillard’s narrative voice is at times authoritative and at times sympathetic. She gives commands directly to the reader, like in Chapter 5 when she says, “Push it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly” (78). From experience, she knows writing can be a terrifying pursuit, and so she tries to alleviate the fears of the writers who feel “discouraged” through humorous stories about her own failures. Dillard’s advice aims to help writers endure the deeply personal difficulties that come with writing by not sugar-coating the strain that can face a writer. Dillard’s guidance prepares her readers for the immense amounts of courage and resilience that writing requires.

Dave Rahm

David “Dave” Rahm was a stunt pilot as well as a professor of geology both at Western Washington State University and the University of Jordan. Dillard records that Rahm performed in airshows at Bellingham, Washington and in Jordan for King Hussein, where he met his tragic end in 1976. Dillard describes Rahm as a “medium-sized, rugged man” (94). In contrast to his extremely flamboyant and artistic flying style, Rahm appears as a relatively “ordinary man” (97). When Dillard is in the air with him, she notes that he is stoic and calm with the “matter-of-fact, bored” countenance of a pilot who is confident in his skills (105). In the few times Rahm speaks, he prefers to talk about how his performance “looked to the audience” rather than about his own feelings about his work (110).

Dillard’s brief encounter with Dave Rahm fills an entire chapter of the seven in The Writing Life, and he is one of the few named people in the book. Dillard relates that she hardly knew Rahm at all; she only interacted with him when “he took [her] up once” in his plane (107). This speaks to the impact Rahm had on Dillard in that short amount of time. He completely shifted her perspective on boundaries and possibilities as she contemplated the performance repeatedly thereafter. Dillard praises Rahm’s endurance and the skill that he displays in his shows and in their flying experience above the Cascade Mountains. Rahm symbolizes for Dillard the physical realization of following one’s work to the absolute limits and blending “vision and metal, motion and idea” (110).

Paul Glenn

Paul Glenn is another of the few named people who appear and speak in The Writing Life. Glenn is a family friend of Dillard’s who lived and worked on Lummi Island in the Haro Strait while she was writing there. Dillard describes Glenn as a “strong-armed, soft-faced, big blond man in his fifties” (84). Glenn is a painter who, at the time, was perfecting a technique of “dipping papers into vats of water on which pools of colored oil floated” (84). Glenn’s desire to diligently act on inspiration for an extended period makes him exemplary to Dillard, who includes his story as a symbolic anecdote for her advice about sustained effort. Like Dillard, Glenn uses an anecdote to comparatively explain his feelings about his work. Dillard initially thinks Glenn’s storytelling indicates that he’s avoiding talking about his work when he uses the story of Ferrar Burn to create connections between their situations for her greater understanding. Glenn’s teaching method in using an anecdote parallels Dillard’s own use of anecdotes throughout the book.

“You”/The Writer

The reader, addressed by Dillard as “you,” plays an important role in the book as a figure who moves through and experiences the various stages of writing firsthand. Dillard assumes the reader is an aspiring writer seeking advice, and she guides “you” through the feelings and reactions one may experience while undertaking a writing project. “You” receives direct advice about the mechanics of the writing process, like scheduling and materials, but also receives intellectual and emotional encouragement. The reader, “you,” is like Dillard’s apprentice to whom she is firm but kind. Dillard uses her own experiences as a young writer to teach “you” better habits and warn against destructive and unproductive behaviors. By placing “you” directly in the story, the feelings of writing become visceral for the reader, and Dillard’s teachings become conversational and thus are more memorable.