“I do not write shitty first drafts,” writes George Dila about his writing process, in his Rethinking the Shitty First Draft.
Oh brother, I thought. I’ve met people with big egos before, but someone who doesn’t write shitty first drafts? Get out of here. For me, if I’m writing something with no real deadline, then it’s inevitable that I go back with a red pen when I find it again. I’ve dismantled and rebuilt entire short stories after returning to the hunk of crap I tried submitting. What does Dila mean by “I don’t write shitty first drafts.”
As it turns out, he had a reasonable answer. His writing process involved revising as he went – not even allowing a bad introduction to reach the page. He actively knows what issues may pop up and stops them in their tracks. When he put it like that, I understood. It was less about ego and more about his personal preference of meticulously building. Meanwhile, Anne Lamott prefers the “I’ll get to it” route.
That’s fair. It’s all fair, really.
There’s more than one way to go about writing. Some people might type up an outline. This outline might be something really complex with a myriad of subheadings. It could be some phrases in a Notepad file that represent a crude three-act structure. “The author gives their thesis. The thesis is explained. The paper is concluded.” That’s not even going into the wide world of people who don’t bother with outlines. A brain is good enough, maybe.
So, who’s right? No one. If Dila is someone you relate to, listen to him; if not him, Lamott. And if not her, whoever else might give you good writing advice. I’ll say this much: you have to put as much of yourself in your work for it to really hit. That goes for the text people see and the things that they never will. You do you.
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