Before We Get Started by Bret Lott

I found Bret Lott's discussion of "a, and, the" a bit too long and tiresome. He could have made the point in fewer words.

His views and cautions about the ironies of publication seemed realistic and sincere. Rejection can be such a formidable thing to overcome. Many of us never make it. Certainly he has received both rejection and acceptance in great measure.

I appreciated and listed the books he suggested that had been important to his development as a writer. The first one I want to read, he keeps on his desk, What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver.

Since he states, as did the other authors we read, that reading and writing are important activities to schedule each day, I am committed to this life discipline.

I was surprised that he was an RC Cola employee when he went back to night school. I was more surprised to learn that he stumbled into writing. It appears that he has struggled for the excellence and recognition that he has found in his writing career.

His ideas on writing creative nonfiction gave me some guidelines to try: to write the story word by word, to allow the story to happen, to allow the characters to be themselves, and to drop the characters who do nothing.