Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Shitty First Drafts By Anne Lamott
This essay by Anne Lamott has opened my eyes a little bit wider when it comes to writing. I always worry that my first draft is terrible but I never think to myself that this is only my first draft and there are more to come. I always just type and fix while I type rather than type it all and take out what is disgusting in the draft. My stories tend to be okay the first time around but most of the time they are absolutely terrible so this essay helped me sort through that. I never thought that a good author actually wrote a decent story on the first try because that cannot be possible. They struggle just as much as anyone else does. I worry just like Anne does about my first draft and that someone somewhere is going to see it before I am done and they will think that there is something wrong with me but nobody is going to see that draft and I just have to remind myself of that. The thing the hypnotist said to Anne will help me with the voices that only start when I am trying to write. From now on, I just have to think of them as mice and put them all in their own little noise proof jar.
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I totally agree with everything that you had to say. My eyes were opened as well when it comes to writing drafts. I never really stopped to think, "This is only my first draft, I can change it," either. When you said you knew authors did not write good things the first time, it made me realize how much that's true! I always kind of assumed that they knew what they were doing, so anything that they would write would be flawless. However, they are only humans, and humans aren’t perfect.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to use that hypnotist jar technique as well, who knows, it could be really useful.
i agree, this article helped me a bit also. I also never think to my self that this is only the first draft and that there is more to come. I always try to get the first draft to be the final draft. Mostly because i am to lazy to write another draft but also because i never really looked at it any other way. Hopefully with Lamott's advice i can change that. I need to start to do the jar technique too. whenever i write the voices telling me to stop writing and edit are always there so hopefully this technique works. I think it should help the flow of my writing.
ReplyDeleteThis reading also opened my eyes in writing. I would always get worried about my first draft being so bad but it’s reassuring that everyone’s first draft is shitty. I agree with you my first drafts are always terrible. By reading this I’ve learned that your writing is not always the best on the first draft. It just takes more time and you will have that perfect draft. In doing the paper for comp class I realized that writing is a lot easier then I thought. You just need to sit down and get something on the paper. stefan groening
ReplyDeletei agree with you on this. A lot of times it is really hard to start a first draft and this reading makes you realize that you don't really need to stress so much about it. I worry all the time about what i'm gonna write and how im gonna organize it all but you probably get more of your point out when you just start writing. When i don't know what to write i always end up procrastinating and my writing doesn't turn out as well as it could. If i could just start and not care about the first draft my papers would probably turn out better.
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