The first draft is more than just a first draft. It is where the magic starts. All ideas are thrown on to a platter ready to be served. Those ideas may blend together really well; they just need some fine tuning to reach a savory end. Everything around us started off as a first draft. For example, mail sent by pigeon was the first draft of sending emails. Handwriting is the first draft to the typewriter and then the computer. There is always a first of something to improve upon.
In our early writing years we are told to write and then edit our work. That first bit of writing is called a rough draft in elementary school. Our drafts are criticized by our peers and teachers. Writing is all over the draft and then we have to go make the second one. The second and third, maybe even fourth drafts aren’t so bad compared to the first.
Anne Lamont refers to them as shitty drafts whereas Renee Long likes to refer to them as seed drafts. Both writers have the right idea in what they are called but personally I like referring to them as rough drafts. Like Long I don’t like calling them shitty because In my opinion calling them rough drafts and seed drafts sounds a whole lot nicer than calling them shitty drafts.I don’t want to feel like my writing is already awful before I even start. Honestly I wouldn’t start writing if I just kept the idea of it being shitty firsthand. Nothing would motivate me to actually write anything.
Calling them seed drafts like Renee Long sounds nice and it implies that there is room for growth in the writing. After pulling out the weeds, that seed draft is going to be an amazingly written flower. It just takes a bit of time to connect the right dots and have each paragraph from start to finish transition smoothly.
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