Starting the Process with Shitty First Drafts

A high school creative writing elective class I took a long time ago offered me at least three long-term gifts. One was to become comfortable with being a male athlete type and also a writer, thanks to the fact that my teacher was also my assistant basketball coach. Secondly, I grew to appreciate poetry, which I had previously thought was stupid. And thirdly was the pleasure of reading Anne Lamott. I first encountered the Lamott's writing by reading Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (which you should all read, writer or not).

In that work and her many others, Lamott can be transcendentally tender, bluntly self-deprecating, witty, or just plain vulgar. She is the epitome of the sinner-saint, which has a real appeal to it, or at least it did to me. One of the chapters that struck me was "Shitty First Drafts." Her vulgarity is, of course, purposeful. That is to say, it engages us more than your average prescriptive writing instruction. Ahhh, I guess I can read this, we think. It's almost refreshing.

But what she's saying is also true. She talks about how she, even as a published writer, has all these voices inside her that discourage her from writing. It's a daily battle, she says. But the only answer is, in her words, "All good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere." We need to get words on the page. The film Finding Forrester suggests a similar idea: "No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!"

We make a mistake if we think this discredits the value of a first draft. The first draft leads us to a second draft, which births a third. As Lamott says: There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love." Ahh, yes, the writing process. It takes more work this way than slamming the keys until you print the paper that's due tomorrow, but this method can also free us from the discouraging voices.

Two examples come to mind. A friend of mine is applying to law school for the second time. He got in the first time; don't get me wrong. He's a bright man. But not to the school he wants to go to, so he's giving it a second shot. He gave me his essays to look at before he submits him. He told me to "tear them up," but I'm not sure he really meant it. I think he really wanted a pat on the back. But I did give him a lot of feedback. He had a lot of good stuff in his "shitty first draft," but most of it needed to change. Through the painful process, he is making the changes he needs to make. We need that as writers, people on the outside looking in who can identify where our draft doesn't work.

I've been working on a book-length project for more than a year. It's a lot different than cranking out a blog post or quickly reporting the details of a sporting event. Of the 200 or so pages I've written for this thing at some point, maybe five are keepable. But this does not mean it's time to despair! All that process was necessary and good, even the shitty drafts. One of my professors says one of the mistakes young writers make it the allure of the "Get in, get out" book. I can believe it. But it's a cheap way to approach the craft.

It's not too different from life, really. We tend to get things wrong before we get them right. Producing something beautiful takes a lot of reworking, sometimes even starting over. So this is where the classes I teach this semester are starting, with the idea of "shitty first drafts." Today was our first day of classes; we used the time to read and discuss Lamott's chapter. Because we all write and live shitty first drafts; perhaps we even need them. We might as well make peace with them.