Anne Lamott’s article on, “Shitty First Drafts” can be controversial to some. When you say something is “shitty” that usually means its not good, but I believe all of the content you write in a first draft is good. Everything you write down in your first draft will help you with your final draft. For example, there can be something you won’t add to the final draft but it can help spark an idea for something you want to include. On the other hand, you can see the things you didn’t like so much and either fix it up or scrap it. Even the things you scrap can help you think about alternative approaches you could take with your writing. With this in mind it makes sense why someone could feel weird about calling it a shitty first draft when everything in it helps you move forward with your work and make it the best it can be.
In terms of how Lamott actually executes her first draft I can agree and disagree with her method. It sounds like a great idea to just write whatever little ideas you get out no matter how strange or bizarre it may be (no one will see it but you) because at some point you’ll get the flow. I would love to know how she’s able to basically double the amount of work she’s supposed to do when writing her draft because that takes some serious skill (I could not create that many ideas for a draft). However it seems very time consuming. What if someone has a really tight deadline and cant just write double the amount of content for their draft and only come up with a few ideas? Does that make their writing process wrong? Obviously it’s to each their own but to me it really come down to the time spent on the draft (and again how she can think of so much to write).
Another writer, Renee Long, agrees that, “Shitty First Draft” isn’t the best name to call your first draft in her article, but her stance didn’t give any sort of advice to how you should write your work, just about what you call it. We both don’t care for the idea of calling it a shitty first draft, but I feel Long takes it a bit far. Long really takes shitty first draft to the head and mentions how it can really deter her from being able to write something good because she feels like everything she wrote down is shit. I, however, don’t think it’s that serious, I can understand using the word shitty in different ways. Think of this, it’s a rainy day outside and someone say’s “Ugh, what a shitty day.” Yes, even though the day is kind of shitty because it’s raining, the rain still has a purpose. The rain is going to help the environment and allow plants to grow and prevent a drought and so on. The rain, even though it feels shitty, still has a purpose in the end as does your first draft.
In the end who knows what way Lamott uses “shitty” in her article. Maybe she means shitty like the structure/layout you use or just the way the sentences are but yes it can look shitty, it doesn’t mean the contents of it are shitty and useless. It all has a purpose and leads you to get new ideas you probably couldn’t think of without it.
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