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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Dillard say that she feels a writer must do about feeling one's work in progress is either magnificent or abominable?
(a) Ask for help from readers.
(b) Ignore it and not indulge in the feeling.
(c) Celebrate or cry.
(d) Get the work critiqued.

2. When Dillard wrote in Roanoke, Virginia, what did she long for upon coming home after writing?
(a) Sleeping till noon.
(b) A tolerant giant to soothe her.
(c) Cigarettes and coffee.
(d) A dreamless sleep.

3. What book was Dillard working on in Roanoke, Virginia?
(a) An American Childhood.
(b) Holy the Firm.
(c) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
(d) Living by Fiction.

4. What had Dillard forgotten all about as she worked on a Fourth-of-July night?
(a) The rest of the world.
(b) Eating dinner.
(c) Her books.
(d) Where she was in her writing.

5. Who is the main character in a story told by Ernest Thompson Seton?
(a) A fisherman.
(b) A Native American woman.
(c) An Algonquin woman.
(d) An Eskimo man.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard say that she makes a pen drawing of in Chapter 2?

2. According to Dillard, what kind of life is a life of sensation?

3. What does Dillard say that she found so appealing about a Danish aristocrat?

4. What sport did Dillard play with a boys' music camp?

5. Which author would only write poetry when he was '...rather out of health'?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Dillard believe a writer often wants to refrain from throwing away the beginnings of the work she has created?

2. When Dillard heard a June bug bumping up against the carrel window one night, what did the noise bring her to realize?

3. How does Dillard say that she defines the meaning of schedules, in Chapter 2?

4. Dillard describes the scenes from her desk at the library in Virginia. Why does she say these scenes are detrimental to her work?

5. Why did a ritual slaughterer bid goodbye to his wife and children every morning as if it were his last, in Chapter 1?

6. When Dillard glanced in the daylight at one of the stacks of books she regularly touched to feel her way at night, what surprised her?

7. Why is 'the path' of the line of writing, as described in Chapter 1 by Dillard, not to be considered the actual work?

8. How does Dillard describe the line of words as being one's own heart?

9. When Dillard was working in the library at night, how did she find her way around in the dark?

10. How does Dillard describe the way in which a writer might start the process of writing a book?

(see the answer keys)

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