Pacify Your Inner Critique

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

Whether while writing an essay or a birthday card, we have all struggled to find the proper words to illustrate our thoughts or feelings from time to time. Upholding the occupation of a writer would multiply that struggle tenfold. An occupation that depends on interesting, fluid pieces of writing every submission requires an adequate number of attempts and patience. Lamott expresses that writers “all often feel like we are pulling teeth” (Lamott), which proves the difficulty of writing is still there no matter the level of writer behind the work. Lamott also emphasizes that a writer “has to start somewhere” and shares her friend’s ideas in her writing to simply “get something - anything - down on paper” (Lamott). Lamott, and the other writers mentioned in this piece, carry incredible track records, while still admitting that perfection did not come initially, or even easily. Thus, proving that the Shitty First Draft has a place in any writer’s notebook or Word document. Lamott’s admission to struggling to properly begin a piece of writing surprised me, given of her success. I could not imagine a woman of her accomplishments stressing out over a food review, yet I felt relieved that someone of Lamott’s title relates to an amateur writer like myself. I often put off my writing as well when I cannot articulate a proper introduction. I do every other possible homework, or shy away from homework in general because the

In Anne Lamott’s essay, “Shitty First Drafts,” she explains her writing philosophy of just getting ideas down on paper and then editing them later. While some disagree with this method, such as George Dila in his critical response, “Rethinking the Shitty First Draft,” many writers employ this technique to not only better their writing, but to overcome obstacles in the writing process. Even the most successful of writers will say that they actually hate writing, Lamott even compares it to pulling teeth. The intimidation of just starting to write becomes too much and leads writers to procrastinate. For many, an overwhelming, overbearing sense of perfectionism creeps in and creates anxiety and often lead to writer’s block. Everyone writes first drafts, but if a writer allows themselves to let go of all personal judgment and permits their writing to be “bad,” then they will most likely end up with great ideas that they did not even know were inside their heads. Once these ideas are allowed to flow out, then it becomes easier to visualize a realistic way of developing them into a full composition. By writing inferior first drafts, writers can focus on and express their ideas while overcoming the difficulties typically associated with the writing process.

Reading the two articles, Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” and Donald M. Murray’s “Write Before Writing” numerous times made me realize a connection with their writing process that I can relate to. Lamott believes that every good writer, or every writer should write shitty first drafts because the writer will produce better second drafts. In her article, she gives examples of her writing struggles and gives her point of view of the writing process. In order to have a good piece of writing, one must write all of their ideas onto paper. Murray’s article gives some instructions on how to create and start a better writing. He expressed that writers should give time to what they’re going to write about, so that they can understand and make it easy on themselves. After reading the articles, I realized some of the complications I suffer within my writing process, but one strategy that I found helpful is Lamott’s drafting development strategies.

When I sit to write, I have to think about what I want to say. This is not easy for me as I tend to think about several things at once. Clearing my mind and focusing on the writing task is a challenge in itself. I do not consider myself a strong writer and find it intimidating especially when I know it will be critiqued. The sense of failure when seeing the paper I worked so hard on look like the newest local headline of a recent murder is disheartening for me. I assume I am being overly critical of myself but those feelings seem to be redeemed when I look over the aftermath of what was my wonderful work of mental art.

In the reading, “Shitty First Draft by Anne Lamott,” she talks about her struggles on writing a perfect just like anybody else does. People lives are not perfect, just the same way your first essay is written. Anne first tells us how nobody can sit down and write a perfect draft right away. Not even me that I’ve been going to school non-stop, I cannot sit down to write an essay draft. I would sit down and rub my head or just write on as piece of paper what my essay would be about.

Writing is a skill most people acquire when they are young and develop those skills as they grow older over time. As children, we learn how to read and write when in elementary school. Our school teachers teach us how to write; the size, the style, and the format. The books On Course by Skip Downing and 7 Habits by Stephen Covey, they are doing something similar. They explain to us about different ways to be effective, and how to better those skills. Both of these authors cover many different topics covering most areas of our lives. They do go into detail about how we think, and how that affects our daily lives. I believe that the most important habits and topics these two books cover would be “Think Win-Win,” “Seek First To Understand, Than To Be Understood,” and then finally “Discovering Your Preferred Ways To Learning.” All these chapters throughout these two books stick out in my opinion, thus why I think they are the ones I want to share. I firmly believe that everyone should learn these few tips because it will benefit them greatly.

Showing how literacy is more than just writing for school or being pressured in school and how you still procrastinate. Lamott used to write food reviews and the would struggle writing them at times, saying “It’s over, I’d think, calmly. I’m not going to be able to get the magic to work this time.” (pg854 para 3). This shows that even as advanced and growing writers we still struggle and have difficult time writing drafts. Writing drafts before you even know what you’re going to say so you just hope for the best. Lamott tells her story of experiencing the struggles of writing, this helps people feel more comfortable with their own writing. If you think that you write shitty first drafts, there’s always numerous people out there with the same

The main takeaway when beginning to write is that one must get something, anything down on paper. She provides a figurative outline as to how one could achieve good writing: one—the down draft, just get it down; two—the up draft, you fix it up; three—the dental draft, check every tooth to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed. On a final note, Lamott ends with saying that quieting the voices in one’s head lends to a clear mind when writing in the first

Anne Lamott’s quote, “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it,” really speaks to me on many different levels. I feel like this quote can be applied to not only writing, but also many other aspects of life. Before reading the article, “Shitty First Drafts,” I had never thought of writing in the way that Anne Lamott portrays it in this quote, but now I can see that there is so much truth behind her statement. I plan on taking this quote as a piece of advice for when I write the Be Interesting essay, and I hope that by doing this I can write the paper with much more ease.

I feel that this idea prevents the writer from censoring their thoughts and allows the individual to fully write their thoughts. I feel that after reading Stafford’s essay I will be able overcome some of my anxiety about my writing skills. I feel that numerous writers experience writer’s blocks and feel frustrated while they’re attempting to write. Therefore, by using Stafford’s ideas I believe that I will able to avoid writer’s blocks and be less stressed while writing. One question that I have is why Stafford regards his thoughts as weak, wandering, diffident impulses? I understand that he goes off of impulses but I do not understand why he regards them as weak and wandering. Another question I have in regards to Stafford’s essay is what he means by receptivity being a process where nobody is judging him? I understand that by being receptive one can go into a new territory of thinking. However, I do not understand what he means that nobody can judge him.

This confinement of her imaginative prowess makes the narrator more helpless and isolated. The only thing that narrator really wants to do is ‘writing’. She perceives that pen down her thoughts and ideas would give her a sense of ‘self-actualization’ and ‘self-expression’ and even could help her cure herself. She says in this respect:

Lamont argues about how begin writing our thoughts for an assignment as a “shitty first draft”. She explains that even good writers go through the same process. Sitting down, thinking for at least 10 minutes, breathing deeply and they start typing. One of the fear that she mentioned was that if she ever desired for a car to run over her, she would worry that what she wrote as her shitty first draft, someone else would read it and believe that the accident was a suicide. Lamont suggest that each person starts by writing something down on paper because she explains all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. Lamont says that one of her friend said that the first draft us the down draft. The second draft the one you fix up. And the third

The article, Coming Up Blank, asks and answers three simple questions: what is the cause of writer’s block, is there an explanation in the brain and are there ways to beat it?

Being a writer does not seem as hard as it sounds, but in reality, it is how you write that makes it hard. A self-conscious writing style takes more will power than other styles of writing, (In my opinion.) There are many problems with being a self-conscious writer and here are just a few problems a person can have.