"Shitty First Drafts" Reading Response

     “Shitty First Drafts”, a passage from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, explores the importance of jumbled and chaotic first drafts to achieve concise writing with flow and purpose. The idea that every writer has overflowing ideas and the ability to put those ideas into quality writing is a very common misconception. Lamott stresses the idea of writing bad first drafts that can be later molded, cut, and altered into something amazing. The statement about having to step away from the computer to breathe and clear your mind stuck out to me because that is personally what I do, or else I feel like I can’t put anything I am thinking into words. Lamott’s anecdote about being a food review author made it easy for to empathize with her in that situation. If I had a paper for school, I would sit down thinking that I must write something with quality or I would not be able to meet the deadline, write a good paper, etc. It is hard for me to grasp the concept of writing so much extra, “shitty” content that will just later be deleted or overlooked. I already understand the importance of multiple drafts to develop a cohesive and well written piece, but I like every draft to have a purpose and some sort of rhyme or reason or else I just feel like I’m writing for nothing. I think Lamott’s fear of someone finding her first draft is silly because she says that one of the purposes of a first draft is for it to be bad. I also find it ironic how her whole article is clearly summarized and the purpose can be understood in the last paragraph when the rest of the article is anecdotes and fluff to prove her point. Overall the article was interesting and had decent points, but the message isn’t something I haven’t heard or seen before.