In a self-reflective piece about her own writing process, Anne Lamott is saying that first drafts are more about the process, rather than the product. Lamott enlightens us with the understanding that all writers, even the most famous ones, struggle with writing. In fact, many of them do not routinely sit down and feel enthusiastic and confident about beginning a piece of writing. Because writing is not always euphoric, Lamott says the only way she can get anything written is by making really shitty first drafts. After writing a horrid first draft, she would go back and cut any parts that were unnecessary, and expand on ideas that she didn’t see before. She would continue the revision process with two more drafts: a second draft to fix it up, and the last draft to finalize the piece. I agree with Lamott’s analysis of how to best create a good piece of writing. Personally, I can strongly relate to creating overly long first drafts. When writing the first draft of Paper #1, I would be filled with so many ideas and visions that I just wanted to put them all into writing. But I would always be worried about writing too much, and I would ultimately leave out important analysis and argumentative parts, and my essay would lean more towards summary. However, after experiencing how to cut and copy I found that not only was my essay more concise, but in eliminating ideas that didn’t fully support my thesis, my essay was in fact stronger. Additionally, I always get stuck on word choice. I could be gaining some momentum, but then have to pause because I would try to form more coherent sentences. I think making a really shitty first draft allows me instead to worry about important concepts, and then go back and review the wording later.
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