Diffculty paper 1 Shitty first drafts Anne Lamott

In the article titled “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, she addresses all the steps she has to go through to come up with her polished works. First Lamott starts off with a summary of what she’s a believer in, a brief description of her thoughts and personal life. Shortly she addresses to what I believe is her thesis and is finally ready to talk about her “Shitty” first drafts. At first she writes what she calls a “child’s draft” which is her first 5 pages of just brainstorming. Composed of just visions and gibberish she does this in thought that no one is going to see this first draft anyway so she gives herself the ability to write anything that comes to mind. Lamott gives many varied visuals of her process, “It was almost just typing, just making my fingers move. And the writing would be terrible.” After crossing out lines and phrases that she could live without, she would continue on to rewriting a second draft. Lamott’s process of writing and revising seems crazy but I’d have to agree with her and say that writing is an arduous task. She mentions thoughts of suicide and panic, “I’d obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft.” It’s funny because when I write, I too, am over come by fear. The fear of deadlines, quality, and what the reader will think. I found this article an easy read and enjoyable, even though Lamott’s way of writing is informal. I think using profanity and even titling her article “Shitty First Drafts” kind of affects her credibility as a writer. I had always been taught not to use profanity in essays because it takes away from your essay and makes you seem like a bad writer. Otherwise a good article by Lamott, I understand that writing is a difficult process but she does have an informal way of writing and I probably wouldn't start my essays particularly her way.