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Title: Good grief...
Review: I was relieved to see that there were at least a couple of negative reviews here, so I wasn't alone. A much better book for aspiring writers is Julia Cameron's "The Right to Write" (or any of her other books, for that matter), Eric Maisel's "Fearless Creating," or Rita Mae Brown's "Starting from Scratch." These at least take for granted that the reader has some idea that you know why you want to write and are not trying to make you prove that you're "worthy" of Being A Writer. Frankly, I found Lamott's writing crude, her self-absorption depressing, and her advice on writing not terribly useful (what little there was of that). Although she certainly seems to love "teaching her classes" I have to wonder how much regard she actually holds them in, given that she's mocking their anxieties about publication at every turn. I'm not sure what she thinks aspiring writers are looking for, but it's not here.
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