After I read “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott I thought I related to that writing process, because my first drafts are never perfect. Then I started reading “Rethinking the Shitty First Draft.” by George Dila and I felt reassured that I definitely relate more to Anne’s essay up until I read more into and understood Dila’s writing process I realized that I definitely relate more to Dila’s writing process. When I write I always revise every few sentences as I go along, I can never “let it all pour out” (Lamott). When I write my first drafts I always try to work my hardest on them so I can focus on edits and minor tweaks because having a messy first draft makes me feel unorganized and not focused on the writing topic. Also to shape an entire draft when it is just filled with random thoughts from the “childlike part of you” (Lamott) will take a much longer time. You might not be able to salvage much of the messy first draft which will lead to more deep thinking for the second and third rather than editing and perfecting.
This does not mean all of my first drafts are ever perfect, but this process allows me to focus on editing and adding to my writing piece in the second and third drafts. “ It will be a competent story at this point, but still open to some revision, to polishing, to “tinkering”. But it will not be shitty. It will not be a mess.” (Dila). Personally, this process allows for a strong base to build off of so if I may want to introduce a new idea to the second draft I will have a strong layout to work with.
I wonder what would happen if you experimented with Anne Lamott’s approach and gave yourself permission to generate a “mess.”
I felt this. I tend to also revise my work as I go insted of doing double the work.