Shitty First Draft Analysis

Anne Lamott is a college graduate, the author of a variety of fiction and nonfiction titles, and has been a columnist for a multitude of magazines. In an excerpt called “Shitty First Drafts,” from her book Bird by Bird, Anne tells the reader that almost every great writer uses horrendous first drafts to create better drafts and works afterwards.

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.

First and foremost writing has always been a bit of a challenge for me. My writing in high school was mostly regarding essays about a book I was assigned to read and analyze. I've noticed that there's a difference between my writing in high school and the essays i've wrote so far in college. My writing in college seems to be far more formal and includes complex wording. My writing in college tends to be longer than most essays i wrote in high school and far more detailed.

Many lose their confidence when they begin writing since it is difficult for them to get down their thoughts in a truthful and interesting way

Everyone knows what writing is to one extent or another, but we all have different definitions of how it should be done and varying degrees of seriousness about the art. We all have a process of writing, but each is unique to ourselves and our own experiences. Annie Dillard and Stephen King are two well known authors who have published many pieces, two of which describe how they view the writing process and let their readers get a peek of what goes on through their minds when they write. These two pieces are Dillard’s The Writing Life and King’s “What Writing Is.”

My relationship with writing could have culminated into three words; fear, quality, and of course no relationship is complete without excitement. Like any new relationship, emotions can determine the success or demise of the relationship. These emotions all work to the betterment of the writer and the writing relationship, each emotion feeding ever so slightly off one another. Exploring these writing relations reveal the truth where my writing relationship is concerned.

While reading “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott and “Journey as a Writer” by Yvonne Sui-Runyan I came to a discovery. Writing is terribly difficult for everyone, not just us college kids. I found that composing any sort of writing challenging for all of us and it is never just sugars and rainbows. This however, can be stressful for those of us who enjoy those things in our daily lives. Being said, after expecting to be thrown straight into a fire after reading these, I came to a suppressing conclusion. I was “okay” with my status as a writer. Not because of the crude humor in Lamott’s writing or the easy to understand structure in Sui-Runyan’s but, because it felt great to know that there are other people out there who are struggling to

As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer. Following the criteria of staying motivated in short and long term goals, taking responsibility for actions and finally the ability to study well will help me develop into a supreme student.

My first thought when I was about to read “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott was, “Why there is so much hate towards First Drafts?” Like the title had so much hatred against Firs drafts; Then, I understood why. First drafts are very annoying and we consider them as mistakes, which from we create a better product that ends up being a great work. I thought the article “Shitty First Draft” was just going to be about how we need to do first drafts. Well, I was wrong. The article was about the author, Lamott trying to explain and teach to the young generation of writers the importance of a first draft and how it’s vital in writing. Lamott, explains why we need first drafts. and how every writer no matter how skilled they are, they need first drafts to create a great final product (unless you are one of those lucky writers which nobody likes because they can do a great wok in their first attempt). She reminds us also that the first draft is where we write all our ideas and thoughts, after we revise our first drafts then we can figure out what we can write about, like separate the useful ideas from the rest of the writing. First Paragraph is a way of getting a more clear idea of what a writer wants to write.

The first content written should never be the final copy; it should be the sloppiest bundle of ideas that the ideas are only there to be written out only to be considered later if important or not. I completely agree with what Anne Lamott is trying to say from the section “Shitty First Drafts” from “Bird by Bird”. Her writing process is a what should be, and usually is, used by every writer and student. Drafts are meant to be ‘sloppy’, as long as thoughts are on paper. Do not even bother adding words that are only there to make the paper seam worldly in a first draft . Use words and dialect that is comfortable to use and that will get the point across. Make it twice or even three times longer than what it originally was meant to be. Have

“I feel as if I do not have voices in my head. But, then again maybe I do and I have not realized that I do. Maybe the voices in my head telling me what to write are so constant and omniscient that I have tuned them out. Who is telling me to write this now? What voices in my head are compelling me to type the word compelled down?”

Personally, the first draft is the process of getting out your ideas and goals for the paper. I love first drafts because it’s not the finished product, so nobody can fault you for your writing, grammar, or lack of development. It’s a process of laying out the ground work for your paper, so you can fix and mold the idea to create the finished product. During my years in school, the teacher has thought us that the first draft should be, “Shitty First Drafts”, through correction and revision the work becomes cleaner and much more articulate than its initial phase. So, regarding me I completely agree with it being the procedure of flowing ideas out of your mind and into paper. However, I can agree with Neill Gaiman point of view, writing in essence

“Shitty First Drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” (Lamot 5) If I would have read this early on in high school I probably would have excelled more at writing essays and my daily warm-ups. I completely agree with every word in this passage. It is alot easer to write what what you ar thinking and then goinng over and making changes so that your shitty first draft is not so shitty any more.So therefore I now know what i was doing that effected my grades in high school, It was the fact that i tryed to turn one draft and that would be it. All together I thought the story was enjoyable and over all I learned what I was doing wrong the whole

Starting a writing career can be stressful and disappointing for some people. Disappointment usually occurs when the author is trying to impress others, and not writing for themselves. Yet, once the writer finds a process that works for them creativity often follows. For instants take Rupi Kaur, milk and honey was a collection of poems about her life experiences and emotions. Once she finished the book, she was faced with fans begging for more work. As the pressure built, she did not feel like she was writing for herself anymore. After deciding to stop writing for other people, and start writing for herself, Rupi finally enjoyed writing again. Karen Thompson is another writer who uses her emotions to write. Karen believes