I write pretty shitty everything
drafts, and I absolutely love it; but it’s a good thing that they are just
“drafts”. I don’t usually know what I want to say when I begin a writing
assignment; be it an essay, thesis argument, or, hell, a weekly blog post, I
typically go into it with no idea what the final outcome/message/topic will be.
I sit down, type out all of my ideas and pray that one of them is good enough
for me to continue upon and flesh-out. If you ask me, this is a halfway decent
system. Sure, I am a little biased since this is the method/style of writing
that I have employed since the beginning of my writing career. None-the-less,
the idea of sitting down and typing everything that comes into mind, only
before going back and editing is a novel system if you ask me. I find it to be
a liberating and innovative approach to writing. Call it unsupported
self-justification, but I find the conventional style of writing, that being
with structured outlines and a ‘back-bone’ plan to be to binding and final.
When my ideas can just flow, I find that I have an unbridled ability to find
connections that I could not have found before through the absolute and rigid
system of “this is your outline, do not deviate from it or else”. While my
writing style is messy, and I will not deny that fact, I do not regret it one
bit. As Lamott writes in the first full sentence on page 29, “Tidiness suggests
that something is as good as it going to get”. I know my writing can always be
better, and if I am locked into the ‘tidiness’ of an outline, my ingenious
connections become stifled and suppressed. Therefore, I wholeheartedly argue
for my ability to write shitty everything drafts; first, second, third,
whatever it takes to get my first non-draft to be perfect.
I'm very familiar with the idea of writing shitty drafts. I feel like most people employ some sort of draft system. I'm always afraid of getting stuck with a certain idea or structure. By this I mean that I'm afraid that once a sentence is placed in an essay, it is placed there in the context of those around it, so changing it is difficult. For this reason I might write a few general ideas down, but then write my essay in nearly one go, carefully thinking over each sentence. Is your shitty first draft just a word document with a bunch of ideas written down in whichever manner possible (bullet points, phrases, etc.) or an essay with some sort of structure to it? I'm curious, because I feel like writing a drafts would be very helpful, but I'm usually too afraid and too stuck in my system to fully try them. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe issue with this method comes when you are (or try to be) a perfectionist, like me. I struggle with just letting ideas flow in fear that I will lose a cohesive train of thought. I like to think in a structured outline form and then think of ideas which fit into these outlined points, which of course is not the way anyone thinks in their head. My head is usually a string of thoughts, or a "visual shitty draft", so why don't I write it down? I tried with this essay to write all my thoughts into a rough outline first which is my first step to letting my hair down when it comes to writing.
ReplyDeleteI think a shitty first draft can take any form you can force out. For me, writing a full essay in which I have to discuss, unite and extrapolate details is the most effective way of thinking about my argument and often I end up with a completely different idea by the end. So I think sometimes an outline isn't enough unless you really have a strong, well supported idea, which I almost never due upon starting a paper. However, I think its difficult to try and adopt someone else's draft system because we are all such different thinkers. I think the most important takeaway from "Shitty First Drafts" is that whatever way in which you find success is justifiable and as good as any other.
ReplyDeleteI love how you are in a way "sticking it" to outlines. Because after trying to write my outline for this paper I feel the exact same way. I would have much rather written a shitty draft that encompasses all my ideas and potential and then even created an outline from there. Take what had substance and find how I supported it and look for more. In writing an outline I agree that it feels imprisoning. Most times when I write an outline I end up ignoring it entirely, feeling guilty for straying from the directed path.
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