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
- The Italian Region of Cilento is Cinematic, Spectacular and UndiscoveredIn this less-traveled region of Italy, the scenery is spectacular, the water wine-dark. It has sun and sea, along with important Greek ruins, wild nature, curious legends and medieval religious sanctuaries.
- Chantal Joffe Paints Moments of Motherhood and GriefPlus: silk lounge sets, a San Francisco film festival and more recommendations from T Magazine.
- Driving the Alaska HighwayOn an epic road trip, a family plots a course from Alaska to the Lower 48, passing through some of Canada’s most spectacular scenery. The tally: 2,200 miles, five national parks, numerous hot springs and one excellent reindeer hot dog.
- 113-Year-Old Death Valley Salt Tram Tower Toppled by Driver Stuck in MudA traveler used the tower as an anchor to try to pull out a pickup that was stuck in mud at the national park in California.
- The 25 Essential Pasta Dishes to Eat in ItalyTwo chefs, one cookbook author, a culinary historian and a food writer made a list of the country’s most delicious meals, from carbonara in Rome to ravioli in Campania.
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!