First Drafts

First drafts are always awful. What Lamott is saying is that no matter how worthless your first "shitty" draft seems it is one of the most important parts of the writing process. Get all your ideas out and put it on paper. If you try too hard to make your first draft perfect you are bound to miss vital information that is hidden somewhere in your sub-conscience that would only come out by opening up your mind and letting the words flow out. The first rough draft isn't supposed to be good and she goes on to say that no one but you will see it so there is no need to worry about people laughing at your work. It is also important to realize that writing takes work. You need to try and try again before you really accept what you've done. Lamott says she "trusted the process more or less." After such a long time of writing she has to have countless exampled of when the writing process worked for her. Practice makes perfect. What I think she means by "more or less" is that there is always a little fear at the beginning before you've written anything. It's self doubt and you don't know what you are going to say. What I can relate to in this reading is the fact that it is hard for everyone to start writing. It made me feel better about myself to hear that people who love writing sometimes dread their topic. Finding a place to start is sometimes the hardest part for everyone. I always get stuck various times throughout writing a paper with writers block. So like these professional writers I need to get up and be occupied for a little to get my train of thought back. I was surprised that even these people that get paid to write doubt there work and are less confident than I thought. The rough draft is absolutely about the process instead of the product. The product may not even make sense at all. It's about getting started and tossing out ideas. During the rough draft process of my personal narrative I say and thought for a long time and the problem is I had too much information. I wrote it all down and took the pieces I thought would fit the best together to explain my message. In general my first drafts are very "rough". Sometimes I'll read my work aloud to myself and I'll laugh at what I wrote because it didn't make any sense. But no one but me will see these drafts so who cares? After the draft is set I feel a little better because I know where to start. Getting the information out is always the most difficult part of the writing process, for me at least. Once its done I'll read it over make as many corrections as needed until I'm satisfied with my work and ready to have people read it. Often, almost always, my final paper looks nothing like my first, rough, grammatically incorrect draft.