"Shitty First Drafts" Response

Within the book, "The Making of a Story" by Alice LaPlante, Anne Lamott has a section titled "Shitty First Drafts".  In the section, she rebuts the misconception that many aspiring writers hold, assuming "good" writers are always full of brilliance and inspiration.  On the contrary, Lamott states almost all good writers write terrible first drafts and build from that point.

  She recants a method used by a friend of hers; a writer breaks up the process into three drafts; "the first draft is the down draft- you just get it all down. The second draft is the up draft- you fix it up. [...] And the third draft is the dental draft where you check every tooth to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed or even, God help us, healthy," (Lamott).  She emphasizes that authors should write the first draft expecting it to be shitty, knowing no one will read it.  The first draft allows a writer to compose their thoughts and ideas and figure out what they want to say; after that they can fine-tune how they want to say it.

Another interesting piece of writing advice found in this section is an exercise given to Anne Lamott by her hypnotist to help clear her mind.  She alludes to a multitude of voices in her head, all bouncing around and doing different things.  I can relate to this phenomenon, as I often become distracted by fictitious and fantasy situations being played out in my head.  The hypnotist suggests "isolat[ing] one of the voices and imagin[ing] the person speaking as a mouse.  [Then] pick[ing] it up by the tail and drop[ping] it into a mason jar," (Lamott).  He says to repeat the process with each voice then visualize the volume of the jar being turned way up, then all the way down to mute.  Once this process is complete, the author can resume their first draft.

This section is very useful for beginning writers because it reassures them that perfection does not just happen, as well as providing some helpful tips to improve the process.