George Dila believes that the word “shitty” is an ugly and repellent adjective when it comes to describing writing. Dila uses an example of a builder constructing a house. Dila says that a builder would waste their time if they build a house in its entirety (knowing he or she made mistakes along the way) and then tearing the house apart. He then furthered his explanation by saying if the builder fixed the error when it was caught originally, he would not have to start from “scratch”. George Dila believes that fixing errors as a writer writes, is more beneficial to creating a good piece, rather than fixing errors at the end.
Anne Lamott believes it is all or nothing when it comes to writing shitty first drafts. She says “All good writers write them”. I agree with the fact that a draft could be “shitty”, although I do not agree with the fact that writers should keep writing drafts. In her writing process she believes in writing the whole draft and then writing more and more drafts until it sounds “right”.
My writing process is very similar, if not identical to George Dila’s process because I find it beneficial to correct errors made as I type, rather than when I finish the draft. I usually have one “shitty” first draft, but edit the same draft until it’s finalized and ready to submit. I believe that in order to write a good piece mistakes are crucial, but should never get discarded, rather added on to. Sometimes first drafts have very good ideas that just need a little work.
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