I asked everyone to read Anne Lamott’s essay, “Shitty First Drafts.” Please add a comment here writing about anything that stood out to you from this essay. If you’re not sure what you want to focus on, you can instead let one of your classmates lead the way and comment on their comment, which will expand our discussion.
NY Times Travel Section
- Arthur Frommer, 95, Dies; His Guidebooks Opened Travel to the MassesAfter publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957, he went on to build an empire of guidebooks, package tours, hotels and other services.
- At COP29, Tourism Gets Its Day. How Has It Fared With Climate Goals?The tourism industry will be officially recognized at COP29 on Wednesday. Industry leaders signed a climate accord in 2021 to make travel more sustainable, but the results so far are meager.
- I Liked New York as a Tourist. I Fell In Love With It as a Tour Guide.How did pigeons came to dominate our streets? Where did Katharine Hepburn live? The answers might be more interesting than you think.
- Kacey Musgraves’s NashvilleThe country singer and songwriter, up for five Grammy Awards this year, including best country album, recommends spots in her adopted home.
- Spirit Airlines Files for Bankruptcy; Lost $2.2 Billion in 5 YearsThe low-fare carrier has struggled to find its footing after its planned merger with JetBlue was blocked by a federal judge.
One thing that stood out to me was the authors purpose. The purpose of the author writing this is that having a terrible first draft is okay. By having a terrible first draft you get to learn from this draft and create a better second draft.
This stood out to me as well. I think the author was trying to get people to understand that the first draft may not come out as planned and the second probably won’t either but the more you edit and revise/ rinse, lather, repeat you’ll get the perfection you’re looking for in your writing.
Okay, so something that stood out to me was how she basically pulled a “read like a writer card”. Like I connected her steps in her first drafts and second drafts to the reading we did last time about writing like a reader or reading like the writer. Like she wrote everything out without a second thought and then in her second draft, she grabbed a colored pen and went through her whole first draft and took out some words to add others to switch out things. And she kept following those steps until everything came out in her version of perfect.
The essay is genuine, It’s not telling you how easy something can be just because you are good at it. Everything is difficult and takes time, achieving something through hard work gives more satisfaction in the end. In my opinion, this is a good essay for informing people not to have an idea that someone else does their work easier than you do, but with work and studying it can all be done.
So far I’m getting the sense from those of you who have commented that this essay was inspiring because it showed you that you don’t have to be perfect at first (if ever) and that getting something on the page or screen is the best way to start, rather than being frozen staring at the blankness.
Who among us struggles to get started? Who among us has practiced getting something, anything out rather than have nothing written?
Have you ever tried freewriting or focused freewriting? We’re going to do some in class on Tuesday.
PS @Tyrah LOVE the rinse-lather-repeat analogy!