When I read this short piece, Shitty First Drafts, by Anna Lamott, I felt myself nodding along with a lot of what the author had to say. First drafts are a CRUCIAL step in the writing in process. In fact, I sometimes even have a “pre-first draft” that looks a lot like a brainstorming page with notes/ideas and arrows all over trying to find causalities, connections or interesting revelations. I find that this stage of writing is one of the more difficult but also one of the most important stages, because the idea (or the “whats the point?” part) is the heart of a paper. Wording can be changed around and revised later, but the main idea is usually what stays the same. I usually like to spend most of my time in this brainstorming stage so I could fully “dig” into a deep analysis.
In my English 2100 class last semester, my professor said and did two interesting things that have resonated with me. The first thing was something she said. She said “writing IS revising”, which I thought was very true. Writing is not something that is completed in one step. It takes many revisions, edits, and modifications. The second thing was something she did. Before certain papers were due, she liked for us to do something she called “freewriting” which was essentially an in-class writing activity to help us get our thoughts and ideas jogging. She would put up a few questions on the board and give us a certain amount of time to write. If she saw a student stop writing, she would just urge them to keep writing even if it didn’t make any sense. The whole point of this, of course, was just to get any thoughts onto the paper so that maybe we would discover an interesting idea that we could explore further. In Lamott’s piece, she says that she would write a “shitty first draft”, and then “the next day, I’d sit down, go through it all with a colored pen… find a new lead… then write a second draft”. This reminded exactly of what my last English professor tried to get us to do.
Writing is no doubt a laborious process that takes a lot of work and effort, but can be a truly creative experience as well!
Yes, brainstorming is the basic part in writing a paper. I like how your professor mentioned “writing IS revising” because that makes “writing” not as frightening. Sometimes, some people might feel like writing has to be perfect and logical at the first shot. However, it is definitely not true. Being able to write something down on a piece of paper is already a good start.
As I mentioned in my piece as well, I had a teacher who had a similar idea to free writing in your English 2100 class. If you write and just keep going, many ideas will come out and hopefully some of them will be ones you actually might want to use in your final draft that may take even a few tries.
My professor for English last semester did the same thing. I took this technique for my own lessons with children (I’m a tutor.) I noticed my little middle schoolers were discouraged when it came to essay writing or short story writing and so I made them free write. At first, they saw no point in it; now, they ask for it themselves because they see how free writing helps them get their jumbled thoughts on paper and somewhat organized. It helps them get a “lead” as to what they’ll be writing about. I think this preliminary, shitty draft is crucial as well for students of any age.