Shitty First Drafts

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I remember as a fourth grader writing two to three drafts for every paper.  Multiple drafts were more than expected, they were required.  At this stage of life, we turned in the rough drafts for a grade.  As I got older, drafts became less of a priority to me for a few reasons, the most obvious being that I just wanted to get those papers done.  Screw writing a whole new paper when I could just substitute some words here and fix the grammar there.  Another factor that drew me away from drafts was when I started typing papers (as opposed to writing them).  How could I start a whole new draft when the paper was right there on my computer, basically ready to go minus a few tweaks?  This bad habit was only strengthened by my AP Language class, where I was told to respond to articles with essays I only had 35 minutes to write.  Reading Lamott’s opinion on drafts opened my eyes as to how I can improve my writing just by spending some time informally getting my words out on paper for that shitty first draft.

            I feel that if I were to take the time to write multiple drafts, my writing could improve very much.  I found Lamott’s writing to be very convincing.  I have never considered writing my first draft just to get my words out, not worrying about what others would think because they would never see it.  This article has definitely changed my perspective on first drafts, and second and third ones!

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 4, 2017 at 3:26 PM

    I totally agree with your response. Writing in high school was almost like factory work, writing as many essays as we could in a short amount of time. Knowing that we now have time to actually work on our writing im excited to see in what ways we all improve.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 4, 2017 at 4:38 PM

    I agree with your comment that I also looked at drafts as like extra work to do, and thought that just writing the essay at one time got the essay over with faster.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Julie CottonSeptember 4, 2017 at 6:14 PM

    I have the same bad habit with just tweaking first drafts instead of rewriting them! I'm trying to break it for this class and for college in general. I am definitely convinced to try Lamott's method instead

    ReplyDelete
  4. Camille VilelaSeptember 13, 2017 at 1:43 PM

    Hi Caroline
    I'm glad that the text has showed you the importance of first drafts. To write in drafts doesn't mean writing from zero each time. Fixing little by little the first draft is considered working on drafts.

    ReplyDelete

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