Anne Lamott's Short Essay 'Shitty First Drafts'

In the brief essay “Shitty First Drafts,” writer Anne Lamott describes the general writing process by use of humor and relatability. Lamott spills her own troubles and woes in a way that assures the reader they are not alone should they feel like their first attempt at a piece of writing is not topnotch material. To back herself up, Lamott gives mass examples of nameless authors she knows and how each made a success out of their shared strife. The writer herself spills what it means to feel hopeless when writing a first draft. It appears her method to success is to surround herself with positive, like-minded individuals, as well as to not take oneself too seriously when painfully jotting down the first words of an essay. In my personal life,

I enjoy writing and I find it therapeutic, but stressing about its excellence sometimes becomes an overwhelming ordeal. To any writer fretting over whether or not they can produce quality work, divert your attention to Lamott’s selection.
Anne Lamott is a successful writer who knows the ins and outs of producing a decent paper.

She exploits her own tribulation to ease the mind of any reader who may feel hopeless when attempting to slave by pen and paper. My favorite part about Lamott’s essay was how strongly I connected with it. As a (tawdry) writer myself, I used to feel like an outright failure during the first half of the piece of fiction I am quietly working on. By the midway point, I began combing through articles, looking for inspiration and assistance. Eventually, I was assured that the first draft is always everyone’s “worst” and it is simply the basic outline of a masterpiece. Imagine my comfort when I began reading Lamott’s article. “It was almost just typing, just making my fingers move. And the writing would be terrible.” This piece from the sixth paragraph is exactly how writing is most of the time. It is not easy and it really is much akin to just making one’s fingers move over a keyboard. She hit the nail on the head when she described how painstaking it was for her to squeeze out an initial draft of anything. Her passive tone throughout the majority of the selection helped the article flow together smoothly, and it enticed me to read until the very end. By then, I felt more than ready to buckle down and begin this

essay.
“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous.” Lamott begins her brief third paragraph by being honest and pointblank. She means this in a way that writing is not as flowy and easy as it may seem when you hold the final edition in your hands. What you get to read is the butterfly that emerged from multiple laborious stages of life, figuratively speaking. Lamott goes on to point out that many writers must endure this struggle to create that lovely, final masterpiece. There are fewer than most writers who can sit down and produce beauty in one shot, but Lamott states that “One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this.” Her humorous tone does not cut out the envy she possesses for such writers, but she is not alone. “I know some very great writers…and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.” This quote from the first paragraph initiates the reader’s first sigh of relief towards having to pump out their thoughts through words.
Anne Lamott’s writing process may sound unprofessional, but the final product assures one that this is her natural way of making something phenomenal. Lamott – former food reviewer for a folded magazine – states that she would visit restaurants with friends who possessed dark humor and would jot down anything they said that made her laugh. This became how she came up with great lines such as, “comparing mounds of vegetable puree with various ex-presidents’ brains.” Before the polished story was released, Lamott had to painfully crank out hooks for each article. She would despair that nothing she wrote was decent and she spent much time procrastinating, rewriting, and scratching out entire sentences. Her conclusion became “all I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft…” and thus the basic outline would come to light. From there, she would edit and fix up anything in her draft that needed tending. By the end of her process, she would find her final draft to be “sometimes even funny and weird and helpful.” I believe the majority of writers can relate to this.
My writing process is eerily similar to Lamott’s. As a writer of fiction in my free time, I make it my goal to produce better than my best. I am always hounding new ways to innovate better quality than the day before. Unfortunately, sometimes this becomes overwhelming. Sometimes I stress over how much better I can sound, and by the end of the day I find myself fretting over how unprofessional I may come off. This is part of the process Lamott describes, although one does not think of this in the moment when they are repeatedly smashing their head against their desk, wondering why their work isn’t “bestselling novel” material. When I write, I sometimes catch myself taking care of premature editing and I have to scold myself to stop and continue the plot. The time for worrying and making your draft nice and pretty comes after you’ve bled it all out. Now, I am a little over halfway through my main plot and I keep formulating new ideas to throw in here and there. This becomes a problem when I backtrack only to find plot holes or unnecessary details, but again, this is when I scold myself and direct my attention back to the main road. The same holds true for essays. I force myself to grip the reins and continue forward, not looking back until the designated time for revision has come.
“Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott is a witty article about what it means to be a writer. No masterpiece is written in the first take, and no quality piece of literature goes unedited before mass production and distribution. Lamott describes the importance of how writers should not sweat the small details until their work is finished. Her use of humor perpetuates throughout the article, keeping all eyes attuned to each word until the very end. I find my own writing process is not unlike Lamott’s, in that I often catch myself in despair over whether or not my writing is “good,” but she addresses this by assuring the reader how many writers she is acquainted with go through the cycle of hopelessness before forcing themselves to sit down and simply “make [their] fingers move.” I find every sentence in Lamott’s essay to be encouraging. If any writer is in panic over their work, I suggest “Shitty First Drafts” every time.