When reading “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott from Bird by Bird I felt as if it was okay to write a substandard first draft, but after reading “Rethinking the shitty first draft” I I understood why this method should not be immediately practiced or also that it should not have to make sense to you. Something that I learned from reading “rethinking the shitty first drafts” is that you should not aim for a mess in your work… when George Dila compared building a house to Lamott’s “pour-it-all-out” strategy I found his comparison a bit extreme but I understood his ideology of Lamott’s strategy. If a builder starts building a house with all his materials on site, begins messing up the cement floors then this builder moves to work on the roof even though his floors are a mess, lastly remembers the electric wires needed to be put before the roof, then the builders house would be a total disaster. Which is why Dila believes careful builders should “go slowly” (Rethinking The Shitty First Draft pg.1). Which is why both writers should use a method that helps them. I completely agree, you should write your first drafts in a way that helps you better understand and complete your writing.
For my own process I do both. For persuasive or informative essays I make sure to follow a format sometimes for poems too but usually I write none unless its mandatory for a class therefore I try to be careful on what I write. For free writing I usually just write whatever I want then re read it and take away what is not an asset of the assignment.
So how are you coming along on your personal narrative? Which approach did you use?