Every Wednesday is Tip Day.

This Wednesday: 14 writing tips from Anne Lamott.

Tomorrow night, I’ll interview writer Anne Lamott at Symphony Space here in New York City. I’m a longtime fan of her work, so am looking forward to hearing her speak about her writing and her process.

It’s especially gratifying for me to do this interview, because years ago, when I was still in law school, Anne Lamott and I were both bridesmaids in my college roommate’s wedding. I was so intimidated by her, a Real Writer, that I don’t think I spoke two words to her the entire time. The intense discomfort I felt around writers was one clue that helped me realize that I wanted to be a writer, myself.

So, in honor of Anne Lamott, here’s a tips list summarizing, very briefly, some of the points she makes in her terrific book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

1. Write regularly, whether you feel like writing or not, and whether you think what you’re writing is any good or not.
2. Give yourself short assignments. Keep it manageable so you don’t get overwhelmed.
3. Write sh**ty first drafts. (I’m not being prissy about the word choice, just don’t want to get hung up in spam filters.) Don’t expect a piece of writing to flow perfectly out of your fingers on the first go. Of all the points she makes, many people seem to find this one the most helpful.
4. Let the Polaroid develop; in other words, observe, watch, listen, stay in the moment, until you understand what you want to write about.
5. Know your characters.
6. Let the plot grow out of the characters.
7. “If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don’t ever bother finishing…it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately. You need to put yourself at their center, you and what you believe to be true or right.”
8. Figure out ways to jam the transmissions from Radio KFKD, the interior station feeding doubts and criticism into your brain. Especially about jealousy of other writers.
9. Have pen and paper ready at all times. (She always carries an index card.)
10. Call around. Ask for help.
11. Start a writing group.
12. Write in your own voice.
13. Being published brings a quiet joy, but it doesn’t transform your life, and eventually you have to write again.
14. “Devotion and commitment will be their own reward.”

One line from Bird by Bird was helpful to me recently. I’ve been feeling a bit panicky about whether I’m going to be able to figure out the structure for my next book; I’m always anxious about a project until I get my structure nailed down. I took heart from her admonition: “Try to calm down, get quiet, breathe, and listen.”

What strategies for writing have you found to be helpful? Or for getting yourself to sit down and work on any big project?

New format: for the weekly videos, I’m now telling a story. I’ve realized that for me, and I think for many people, a story is what holds my attention and makes a point most powerfully.

This week’s story: I can’t choose what I like to do, but I can choose what I do.

Usually I express this Secret of Adulthood in reverse: I can choose what I do, but I can’t choose what I like to do (I can choose to go fly-fishing, but I can’t choose to like fly-fishing; believe me, I’ve tried). But the opposite of a profound truth is also true, and reversing this statement makes sense in a different way.

If you want to read more along these lines, check out…

Have fun that’s actually fun–for you.

Happiness doesn’t always make me feel happy.

How about you? Do you sometimes make yourself do something just because you choose to do it? And any other fearful drivers out there? Boy, I wish I could love to drive.

You can check out the archives of videos here.

Here’s a question for you.

2013 is almost here (how did that happen, by the way?). If, by the end of 2013, you could magically change one aspect of your life, what would you change? What single thing would add the most to your happiness?

You know my next question.

With that aim in mind, can you come up with concrete, manageable steps that would help you accomplish it?

As I’ve worked on my happiness projects, I’ve been surprised to discover how easy it is to be unhappy with some aspect of my life, but somehow never try to do anything about it. And many times, once I tried to do something about it, it wasn’t even very hard to improve it.

“And there was, in those Ipswich years, for me at least, a raw educational component; though I used to score well in academic tests, I seemed to know very little of how the world worked and was truly grateful for instruction, whether it was how to stroke a backhand, mix a martini, use a wallpaper steamer, or do the Twist. My wife, too, seemed willing to learn. Old as we must have looked to our children, we were still taking lessons, in how to be grown-up.”

– John Updike, Self-Consciousness

I recognize this feeling in myself–needing to learn how to be a grown-up. Do you ever experience this? It’s part of the reason I started keeping track of my Secrets of Adulthood.

Holidays can be tough. Some people love them; some people dread them.

I thought a lot about the holidays as I was writing Happier at Home, because the holiday season tends to be a time when we focus on home. Maybe you’re going “home” the way I go home to Kansas City for Christmas–which may be fun for you, or not. Maybe you’re deciding how to decorate your home. Maybe you’re making an effort to arrange the holidays the way you experienced them as a child–or the opposite. Maybe you’re feeling sad, or happy, about whom you will or won’t be seeing.

From talking to people, it seems that one of the biggest happiness challenges of the holidays is dealing with difficult relatives. You want to have a nice dinner, but Uncle Bobby makes you crazy. What to do?

1. Ahead of time, spend a few minutes thinking about how you want to behave. If you’ve had unpleasant experiences in the past, think about why they were unpleasant and what you could do to change the dynamics of the situation. Get more sleep. Give yourself more travel time. Pick a seat far away from Uncle Bobby. In particular…

2. Think about how topics that seem innocuous to you might upset someone else. You may think you’re showing a polite interest, but some questions will rub a person the wrong way: “So do you have a girlfriend yet?” “When are you two going to get married/start a family?” “Didn’t you give up smoking?” “Can you afford that?” “When are you going to get a real job?” Show an interest with more open-ended questions, like “What are you up to these days?” or “What’s keeping you busy?” Also…

3. Dodge strife. Some families enjoy arguing passionately amongst themselves; however, most don’t handle arguments very well. If you know Uncle Bobby’s view of the election is going to drive you crazy, don’t bring it up! And if he brings it up, you don’t have to engage. Try to make a joke of it, and say something like, “Let’s agree to disagree,” “Let’s not talk about that, and give the rest of the family something to be thankful for,” etc.

4. Don’t drink much alcohol. It can seem festive and fun to fill up your glass, but it’s easy to lose track of how much you’re drinking. Alcohol makes some people feel merry, but it also makes some people feel combative, or self-pitying, or lowers their inhibitions in a destructive way. I basically had to give up drinking because alcohol makes me so belligerent. And if other people seem to be trying to avoid or curb their drinking (or their eating, for that matter), don’t make a big deal of it or urge them to indulge.

5. As best you can, play your part in the tradition. For some people, traditions are very, very important; for others, no. You may feel irritated by your brother’s insistence on having exactly the same food every Thanksgiving, or by your mother’s extreme reaction to your suggestion to eat dinner an hour earlier. Try to be patient and play your part. In the long run, traditions and rituals tend to help sustain happiness and family bonds. On the other hand…

6. If you’re the one who wants everything to be perfect, try to ease up on yourself and everyone else, so you can enjoy the day, whatever happens. Even if the day isn’t exactly the way you hoped it would be, try to enjoy what it is. My mother once told me, “The things that go wrong often make the best memories,” and it’s really true. And too much fussing to make an experience “perfect” can sometime ruin it altogether.

7. Find some fun. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is Just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t mean it’s fun for you, and vice versa. If the time with your relatives is meant to be fun, make sure you’re spending at least some time doing something that’s fun for you. Working in the kitchen, playing touch football, sitting around talking, running errands, watching the parade on TV — these things may or may not be fun for you, no matter how the rest of the family feels.

8. Find reasons to be grateful. Be thankful that you get to cook, or that you don’t have to cook. Be thankful that you get to travel, or that you don’t have to travel. Be thankful for your family or your friends. Be grateful for electricity and running water. Find something. Studies show that gratitude is a major happiness booster. Also, feeling grateful toward someone crowds out emotions like resentment and annoyance.

Wait, you might be thinking, these strategies don’t tell me how to deal with my difficult relatives — they tell me how to behave myself. Well, guess what! You can’t change what your difficult relatives are going to do; you can only change yourself. But when you change, a relationship changes.

Have you found any helpful strategies for dealing with a difficult relatives? What would you add?