Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Draft” and George Dila’s response “Rethinking the Shitty First Draft” both have interesting arguments that readers can agree or disagree with. Lamott says the first draft of any professionally written piece should be shitty, and writers will find things within that draft that they can pick out to build upon in the second draft. Dila argues that this is not the definitive way to write, though it is the method Lamott suggests most writers should use. I agree that writing is not the linear process that Gordon Rohman suggested in 1965. However, the concept of a “shitty” first draft is suggestive. What constitutes a deliberately bad first draft? Sloppy sentence structures? Lazy misspelling? Lack of effort? While I can understand the idea of wanting to pour it all out and fix it up, I side with Dila on the fact that not everyone writes this way. I personally do not either.
When I write, I let my thoughts speak, then translate it out into the piece. If I’m writing an important professional paper, I tend to outline first and forge a somewhat decent first draft, including every idea and point that I want to discuss, and place it where it goes in the paper. Afterwards, I look for things to clean up or take in notes or comments from my professor. From there, I revise. I find things to emphasize or build upon, strengthen the weaker areas, and ultimately construct my final paper. Lamott’s argument, in my opinion, seems like an exaggeration of what the first draft should be. Brainstorming, taking notes and outlining is more of my method. It saves time during the revision process because the first draft would have more to work with and build upon rather than crossing all of the “shitty” chunks out and saving what I want to explore further down the way. Overall, I see where Lamott is coming from, but I do not personally write the way she is suggesting.
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