The Writing Life

The most frequent symbol Dillard uses is the line of words. The line of words is a multifaceted tool that the writer uses and creates, but it is also a symbol of discovery. In The Writing Life, the line of words takes on many shapes to illustrate how it finds stories and ideas. The most frequent shape it takes is a laborer’s tool—a miner’s pick and shovel, a surgeon’s probe, or a workman’s hammer. As a pick, it leads a writer into the unknown depths of a story, like how it extends a mine’s tunnel. In one instance, Dillard references how she cannot manage to “pick up [her] shovel and walk into the mine” (48). Here, she represents her inability to continue writing because of difficult subject matter; she does not want to wield the line of words because she is afraid of where it will lead and what it will ask her to contemplate. As a surgeon’s probe, the line of words illuminates hidden issues, as a surgeon seeks bodily abnormalities. As a hammer, the line of words helps demolish structural errors in a work by “hammer[ing] against the walls of your house” (4). The line of words adapts its shape for each stage of the writing process, and Dillard employs its image to denote progress towards a finished work.