Writing with "Bravura"

The Writing Life expresses the hardships that writers must go through to produce a work worth reading. Annie Dillard makes an excellent use of a metaphor on page 12 to demonstrate the fact that writing can be difficult and demanding. Her books can sometimes be like dying friends that she must "hold its hand and hope it will get better" (p 12). The willingness she has to never let go of her work demonstrates the devotion and compassion she must have for her writing. How difficult it must be to work on something that may die? It is the hope that will get her through and allow her to believe that her idea or work in progress will not die as long as she labors on it. 

Similarly, as she must work as if to keep a dying friend alive she must keep her writing tame. If she neglected her writing and let it lay on a desk it will become ferocious like a lion. It is important that she train herself to manage her work or it will become unmanageable. According to Dillard she "must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it" (p 12). Knowing that at any moment a writing can disobey and become something that was never wanted must be tiring. This demonstrates that Dillard has a true dedication to her work and she will try as hard as she can to master it. 

As well as stressing the importance of controlling the beast Dillard gives the feeling of urgency. She shows how urgent it is to take care of her writing every second of the day in the way she writes on page 12. As she is writing about the lion and how it must be tamed the sentences are short and choppy. They give the reader a sense of urgency that she is racing to finish a work before it becomes unmanageable. Through all of this Dillard gives the reader a sense of what it means to be a writer to herself. Dillard certainly writes with "bravura" (p 12) and the hope to keep her writing alive.