Shitty First Drafts

Lessons from Anne Lamott

They say to write what you know.

Well...I know nothing.

That is to say my writing process often looks like this: me staring at a blank screen waiting for the perfect words to come to get what is in my brain onto the page or waiting for the characters to tell me what they're going to do.

And I hear you say 'but aren't you the writer? Aren't you supposed to tell them what to do?'

Quoth the raven: No.

Or, rather, if only that were so! I'll often have a set plan in mind about character A ending up with character C, only for A to decide halfway through that, um actually on second thought they're going to be with character B instead. Meanwhile I am left wondering where the heck character B even came from and when did I write this and where did my perfect plot go?

Recently I read “Shitty First Drafts,” a series of excerpts from author Anne Lamott’s memoir Bird by Bird. In it, she details her own personal anecdotes and tips for the writing process, and a few of her passages in particular stuck out to me. One of her core pieces of advice is just start by getting something- anything- down onto paper, and going from there. It doesn’t matter the quality, or even truly, the quantity. The first draft is allowed to be shitty because the first draft is just for you, the author, to get your thoughts from your head to the page and get your points and ideas onto the paper.

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts,” she says, and, “What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”

Both of these passages stuck out the most to me because one of the many things that I struggle the most with in my writing is my concept of perfectionism. I always worry about what I write and how it’s going to be perceived, and if I’m actually putting out what I want to come through on the page, to the point where if I don’t get it right the first time, I don’t even write anything down. Then there’s all the voices in my head telling me that what I’ve done is terribly written, or that someone else has already done this better. It was really comforting to me to hear that all writing, even the greatest done by a writer, all started somewhere, and that it was ok to have a shitty first draft because it can only get better from there. It gave me a different perspective on how to go about my writing and not fear so much getting it all perfect right off the bat. Additionally, the reminder to just put all those voices aside and just write the shitty draft without hassle was nice to have, and is something that I’ve begun implementing in my own writing.

I’m ok with knowing nothing, and having shitty drafts. It means I have more to look forward to and learn…and more to write.