SHITTY FIRST DRAFTS

Anne Lamott and her article “Shitty First Drafts” presents an interesting, and in her case effective, writing process in which to produce a good piece of work, a “shitty” one is necessary first. In my experience, her theory actually has something to it. When I have a writing assignment, my thought process starts similarly with the first paragraph being a jumbled mess of an attempt at collecting my thoughts. I write and tweak and write and tweak until I am left with an overall idea that I am enthusiastic about which then sparks interest for the rest of the piece allowing me to complete the assignment easily. After the hard part is over, the rest comes naturally. In most cases this process is done in one sitting with some exception for the lengthy of particularly challenging tasks. When I have put a lot of time and effort into a piece, editing and revising is too hard to do in the same sitting because I will have been too close to the project for too long. Even though the rest of the paper comes pretty naturally, I tend to write maybe a paragraph at a time, and then reread the paper. Unfortunately for myself, this is a long, dreary process but a process in which I have instilled my faith, similarly to the way Anne Lamott instilled hers into her shitty first draft.