What was to be Sunday’s serenade is now music for a manic Monday: “Just a Ride” by Jem is a reminder that life, much like writing, is a ride with ups and downs. The key is to let go and take it all in stride.

Last night I picked up Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird for the first time, this in hopes that Lamott’s advice on writing might make for some moral support on this last round of manuscript revisions for Grace Sticks. Lamott, in describing the inspiration for the title of her book, relays how her little brother, who was ten at the time, was trying to finish a report on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day: “We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he as 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.'”

Instructions for writing, yes- but also for life.

The other day I spoke with a woman who had every reason to feel overwhelmed. Her husband had died. Her son was suicidal. She had work troubles. We prayed that God’s grace would be enough for the day, and that she really would be able to take life one day at a time. Bird by bird.

May the same be true for you, too, at the start of another week.