Shitty First Drafts

While reading "Shitty First Drafts" I was actually shocked by all of what Lamott had to say. She explained that there is not a single writer, no matter how good that can sit down, relax themselves, stretch, feel amazing, and crank out a perfect story with perfect paragraphs and grammar. She explained that all writers write shitty first drafts then continuously revise them until it is what they want and imagine in their minds. Some of the practices that jumped out at me and really helped me are not to reign yourself in, to let yourself and your thoughts run free for as long as they can so that you get out everything you need to say as many times as you want to say it. Another one is that you should or can write twice as long as the paper originally was and leave any mistakes in the paper, just keep on writing until your thoughts run out. I also thought the practice of writing down everything you think was very helpful. I am not very good at controlling the voices in my head and the things that I feel so it was a relief to me when she pointed out that it was okay to say whatever you thought. Lamott goes on to say that after you write your first draft, you should sit down with a colored pen and mark out every possible thing that seems like it wouldn't work and then use what is left and take it in a different direction than what was in your first draft. This helps to get you to say what you want to say with the accuracy you need. These are good practices because they allow you to not put so much stress on yourself. They allow you to say what you want to say, in many many different ways and get it all out and in a solid place then you can weed out what you do and do not want. These practices make you feel more at ease and therefore able to use your imagination more and write more creatively and from the heart. The benefits from these practices are a free mind, a stress free feeling within yourself, the ability to say what you want to say how you want to say it, and keeping you open minded. Lamott helped calm my anxieties by saying that it is okay for me to feel like my first draft is awful and it is okay for it to actually be awful. She calmed me by saying to not reign yourself, but to let all the voices in your head and all of your feelings just run onto your page and keep going until you have no more thoughts or things you want to say. She said it was okay to write the paper twice as long as it needs to be, it can be however long you want it to be because it will be revised over and over again. I'm glad that I read this article because I now know that it is okay if I write the worst first draft ever.