Not everyone’s brainstorming process is the same when it comes to formulating your writing. Some people believe in just going for it and immersing themselves right into the paper whereas others believe that you should write that shitty first draft. Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lammot says that it is key to write a terrible first draft. She explains that from the point of writing your first draft you can only improve from your mistakes from that point on. She calls it a “childs draft” where you let everything onto the piece of paper. It is explained that it is good and natural to have your ideas bounced all over the place.
I, for one, do believe that this is true. I function better in my writing when I start off by just throwing my ideas on paper. I think that it depends on the writing prompt, if I am given no limitations I will bounce all my ideas around on a document or piece of paper. If it is more structured like an argumentative piece, the idea of throwing my ideas out there sounds very scary. In that circumstance I need to keep all ideas organized and well thought out even in the rough draft process.
In Renee Long’s podcast Why I Reject the Idea of Shitty First Drafts (And What I Do Instead) she disagrees with Lammot completely. She begins by saying writing is a love letter and a process of emotions as a whole. Long explains that writing a shitty first draft only works in certain circumstances. She explains that by doing so it makes her feel terrible about her writing process and the writing looks bad as a whole. She also thinks that calling your work bad is discouraging.
She says that to think of it differently, swap the idea of a shitty draft with the idea of a seed draft. A seed eventually grows into something beautiful and think of your ideas as little seeds. Also don’t be too harsh on yourself when you do run into issues or feel that your work isn’t good enough, it is all part of the process.
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