Better late than never...the shitty first draft

It is too much of a common struggle to put complex ideas into clear, sharp and concise words on paper. After writing my first paper for my infamous high school English teacher and consequently seriously being asked, “do you even know how to write a sentence?”, I thought I should brainstorm a different approach to my writing of essays. After seeing that not only my English teacher, but everyone else who read my writing was highly confused by the content, I realized that I never wrote exactly what I meant and expected the reader to make jumps that I had not fully laid the groundwork for. I was too concerned with eloquence and big words to make a real impact on the page. When my mom told me to explain to me her thesis as I would to a friend, I finally realized the value of simplicity in writing. Since then, before almost every written assignment I write down a sort of stream of consciousness, which usually makes little to no sense, but it takes my ideas out of my head and into the tangible world. This lets me see, alter, cut, and organize my ideas into something I can start to think of in concise words. I have an intrinsically disorganized brain and fully believe in the power of the “shitty first draft” to do the organization for me. It puts my ideas into a state where I can refine them without muddling them up in my head or forgetting them as new ones pass by. The shitty first draft taught me how to write a sentence.

Happy Procrastination!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glii-kazad8

Passing the Shitty First Draft Stage

After reading Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" and "Perfectionism," I felt much better about my writing. I often begin by writing the worst first draft as well. My first draft is always much longer than the maximum assigned pages because I repeat myself, I ramble, I include unnecessary information and I just keep writing. I do this not only with essays but with emails, text messages and any form of writing. I realized the reason my essays stay shitty is because I often do not go past the first draft. I get frustrated about how bad my first draft is and I usually only fix it slightly and hand my piece in. I also realized to write several drafts, I need to be more time efficient and start writing my drafts in advance. Writing concisely is one of my weaknesses so I think the processing of writing several drafts to narrow down and cut down my ideas will be very helpful.

I also really enjoyed the piece on perfectionism. While I would not call my self a perfectionist, the critical voices of other people definitely bother me. I always feel as if I have to please everyone and I definitely agree that I am harsh on myself. It is very true that I am much nicer and more constructive reading a friend's paper than reading my own. I loved when Vonnegut explains, "When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth" (32). Sometimes I really wonder how I am able to write so poorly. Although the crayon in the mouth image seems so bizarre, often times, my writing probably looks like someone crazy wrote it. I often look over my first draft and wonder why my seemingly good idea turned into such crap. I hope that by having a word limit and by editing my drafts, my essay will turn out decent enough to pass the shitty first draft stage.

I should write more shitty drafts

I didn't relate to Anne Lamott's piece, "Shitty First Drafts," on a personal level, because I don’t typically write like she does. While I do think that many of my first drafts are shitty, I don't usually take the stream of conscience approach that she suggests. Instead, I attempt to write in an organized fashion modeled after the thesis and outline I constructed. I go in with a plan and I try to stick to it rather than allowing myself to find good strong writing through, well, writing. I try to think my way to a strong paper rather than write my way to one. While this approach often makes for quick writing of an essay, it leaves me trapped within the confines of the generic and sub-par outline I threw together the day before I started writing.

Instead, I should write more shitty drafts. Lamott’s piece put into words what I have learned from writing these blog posts: that writing not only helps me flesh out my ideas, but helps me state them thoughtfully and accurately. Typically, the strongest part of my blog post comes at the end, the point at which I have spent the most time thinking about the subject at hand. I ought to take the same approach with writing papers. The 250-word response to my thesis was a good start and there are parts of it I will likely use in some form in my paper, but writing a shitty first draft in the way Lamott discusses will help me discover more good writing that lives somewhere inside my brain.

Chipping away at a block of writing

In many ways, the piece Shitty First Drafts, reminded me of a sculptor chipping away at a piece of marble. Specifically, when Lamott talks about just getting everything down on paper at first. She talks about the fact that when you are pouring everything out, because you're starting from scratch and you don't really have any idea what you're going to talk about, there are sometimes really good sentences or words that come out. This reminded me of the sculptor who has to chip away at the marble, and even though he is at the beginning of the sculpture, he will very quickly reach a part of the sculpture that will remain in the final product. As he continues to sculpt, the shape of the final sculpture takes place more and more, and there are many more sections of marble that appear that will remain. Nonetheless, these first pieces of final sculpture that are reached are evidence that writing is a process, and that the final product will have some parts of each layer chipped away (draft).

The sculptor must also listen to the medium he is working with. Much as Lamott talks about silencing the other voices that are bothering you inside your head, the sculptor must do the same. If he were thinking about his annoying parents, or his money problems, his vision would be corrupted. He would never be able to see where he was going with the piece, and he might let these other visions work their way into his piece. Thus, one must work on a piece of writing in much the same way as a sculptor. Working with a clear mind to chip away the layers of shit that surround their final piece of writing, keeping those sections that aren't covered in shit as they work their ways down.

First is Always the Worst

Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" and "Perfectionism" really made me feel like I was the one she was directly talking to. I am sometimes a perfectionist but only when it really counts. Sometimes, however, I am not. There may even be typos in this post that I should have noticed and corrected. When I am a perfectionist though, I do find myself wasting a lot of time. After reading Lamott, I realized that it's just the first draft and I should be getting out all of my ideas first before I can even actually process it. What matters is that I don't lose any important ideas by trying to be a perfectionist. There have actually been moments where I think to myself while trying to perfect my writing, "wait I was going to say something important that related to this" and end up never being able to remember it.

I think this reading really helped me figure out how to go about writing not just my first draft but also writing in general. In the past I was always worried about finding the right words and always had thesaurus.com open (which actually did help a lot) but now I think my main focus should be to just say everything the way I would normally say it and make it more concise later on. In general, writing should also be kept in your own style and words and if you try too hard to make it perfect, you may end up turning it into something else.

Them Blurry Notes

They distracted me multiple times - the underlines, the arrows, the stars, the ticks, the blurry notes - but not to the point where I couldn’t follow the text, but definitely to the point where I felt as though they themselves were text in their own rights. I was hearing two separate voices. And while one was telling me all that she thought she knew about shitty first drafts, the other was telling me what ideas were less shittier than others and demanded close attention. I have always wanted to do that to other people - leaving breadcrumbs and myself behind.

Like how I took Biology back in high school and I took notes in the ginormous book and underlined and wrote questions to the side. Yes all these did help came the time I needed to regurgitate and hurl everything back up on paper. But there was always this sense of self-indulgence in the back of my mind about passing along to the next guy in line my keen and astute observations and my genuine inquisitiveness of the pen-pushers and the worlds they flesh out. Form of narcissism?

More like insecurity. But then again they can be one and the same. Both pull the strings and leave the unfortunate shouting in the dark and demanding notice. Not really a space to meander on that here. But you get the idea.

I have never sold that Biology textbook back, though. I don’t know what happened to it and where I left it. So that was as wild as my fantasy got.

But I do wonder, though, if this sense of insecurity the same kind that cripples inventiveness and  “suspends animation”, to phrase the author. Perfectionism to her is a result of writing too little because of whatever that makes a person shy away from tearing open the unconscious. So she  encourages unabashed, straight up full-blown ranting (then funneling, of course), like it’s a treatment to the condition of the uninitiated. Ok. Sure. Maybe they’re one and the same, minus the part where mine focuses on shoving my unconscious in someone’s face. Cognito ergo sum.

But here’s what I don’t get. What good does it do if you don’t show people your shitty first drafts? Lamott says, “all I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft, of say, the opening paragraph. And no one was going to see it.” Heck, that’s the devil and the deep blue sea right there. And the thing is, they’re not equally problematic. By not showing people shitty first drafts, we create this barrier between us and the aspired, telling them we’re God materials and untouchable. Vonnegut, Tim O’ Brien, J K Rowling, whoever. We’ve heard and seen them talk about themselves struggling creatively. But their creative battles relay like mountain sermons down through whatever secondary or tertiary clean-shaved narrative funnels we get our stories from, ultimately raising the stakes even higher for the untrained. I want to see them bare. Imperfect. Unrefined. I want to see Harry Potter before he was Harry Potter. I want to see Felix Hoenikker before he was Felix Hoenikker. I want to see Tim the narrator before he was Tim the narrator. And I want to see “Shitty First Drafts” before it was “Shitty First Drafts”.

Instead I’m online and trying to meet the deadline for this blog post. No drafts. Just naked and unafraid.

Sometimes I feel like we the pupils are ten times the writers than the masters. Form of narcissism?

More like insecurity.

Excited for my own shitty draft

Reading Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" actually made me far more excited to begin the actual process of writing this essay than I had previously been. While I would actually define myself as someone who, in the grand scheme of people, enjoys writing essays, the moment of sitting down at a blank screen and actually beginning the work is always by far the most daunting part. It is as if you feel like you must open the entire paper cleverly with a witty summary of exactly where you want your argument or angle to be headed. However, Lamott's concept of "the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and you can shape it later" (pg 22) really resonated with me. Why do I put all of this worry into a body of work the nobody is going to see but myself?! Where is all of the pressure that I feel actually coming from? If the hardest part is starting a draft, I am determined to begin this one by just writing what is on my mind about my comparative thesis and then naturally working my way into the body paragraphs. After reading this, I am definitely not going to give anything a second look until I have gotten out a full, probably shitty, draft. 

Thanks Grandma!

I wonder how many times Anne Lamott wrote "Shitty First Drafts" before finally deeming it "safe" for human consumption. Likewise, how many times did she write "Perfectionism" before she decided it was "perfect", or accepted the fact that nothing is. How do you ever know when your writing can be deemed "acceptable"? I think the answer correlates directly with the deadline. As Leonardo da Vinci one stated, "art is never finished, only abandoned". My writing is definitely not art. However, I do know when it is "finished", and that is when the syllabus says it is.

As for my process, I like to bump some creative hipster tunes (Paper Kites Pandora), put two comfy chairs in the library together in order to make a makeshift bed (crib), and check all social media and emails at least three times, before starting a paper. I do this with no prior planning, or sense of organization. I just get everything on the page, slap on an attractive title (teachers love attractive titles...I think) and give it a couple days to hang out in the nucleus of my computer, with all of the other papers and homework assignments that are forgotten for a week. Then I read them a week later and am either really happy, or really sad. Most of the time, I determine the paper is complete shit and end up rewriting it late into the night before it is due. It ain't perfect, but it works. And like my grandmother always says, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Thanks grandma!

As a side note, and conclusion, apparently Vonnegut said, "When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth."After reading this, I am going to have a hard time not imagining Vonnegut exactly like this. Just a torso and head with a crayon in his mouth, making marks and shapes on a page of white paper that look like a four year old's art class portfolio. However, to Vonnegut, these shapes organize the mess inside his head, allowing him to decipher a book that will be analyzed by college students for a millennia.

On a side note, this is one of the funniest videos I have ever seen. Hope you all like soccer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9jXYOH2c0

My Process

I like to write down quick notes as I read something through for the first time, so I will do that for “Shitty First Drafts” and “Perfectionism”.

So far, Lamont’s advice to just “trust the process” has resonated with me the most (Lamont, 25). I’m going to be honest and say that I hate writing. I know that it definitely isn’t my strong point academically, and the process I have to go through every time I write a paper makes me have a mini-mental breakdown (I’m only being half-dramatic). That being said, I’m glad that it’s basically acceptable to sit down and not spew out a great first draft. I know that that should be obvious, but sometimes I’m just not so sure, being at a writing-intensive school and all.

In “Perfectionism,” the part that stuck out to me was when she writes that “the truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it” because it was a huge reality check to the face (Lamont, 28). Also, the fact that Vonnegut feels “’like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth’” was just a really funny mental image (Lamont, 32).

I like that we have checkpoints for this assignment, like workshops every few classes and this outline due tomorrow, because it keeps me thinking about my essay and I find myself writing multiple drafts. Even though my “shitty first draft” process is taking a few days, being able to talk it out every so often is really making a difference.

The Art of Lying

Although we didn't have any reading necessarily assigned for this week, I was still thinking about how writers can completely manipulate the reader. Furthermore, I was thinking about how this could relate to humans and our current society. For example, the use of advertisements by big companies and corporation. Similar to what we have learned so far, the writer has all power in how and what the reader will think. In our country of capitalism, these big and major companies also have the power to hire the "best" and most persuasive writers. In doing so, these advertisement producers probably lie and manipulate the mind of the consumers. For example, the many many soda and beer advertisements we see on the daily. These companies associate there product to people enjoying and having fun. By doing so, consumers will think about that product overtime they are having fun or in a similar scenario as the advertisement. Although they don't explicitly lie to the consumers face, it is very reasonable to presume that these advertisement producers lie by making it seem as though their product and having fun are correlated with one another. This really shocked me and opened my eyes to how people manipulate one another in our modern world. The use of telling "lies" in a non direct and deceiving way is probably used in more than just the advertisement world. However, by being able to identify and catch these manipulative acts, I can see through the lies and deceptions that these companies put out. By doing so, I am saving myself from falling for just another trick up these companies' sleeves.

The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Birdman recently won the Oscar for Best Picture. The movie actually deals with a lot of the topics that we have been discussing in class, as the subtitle “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” would suggest. This blogpost will have spoilers about the movie.

In the movie, Michael Keaton plays washed-up movie star Riggan Thomson, known for his role as Birdman in a series of superhero movies. As the movie goes on, it becomes clear that one of Riggan’s biggest problems is trying to separate himself from his role portrayed in his movies. People see him, the actor, and shout “Birdman!”. The lines between movie and real-life become even more blurred when you consider that Michael Keaton’s life parallels Riggan’s. Keaton too starred in a series of superhero movies in the past, dropped out of the limelight, and is now trying to be viewed as a serious actor through a new project. For Riggan, this redemption is found through a play adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. For Keaton, redemption is found in the movie itself, Birdman. These similarities make for a problem quite similar to the one I found myself having in The Things They Carried, trying to distinguish author-O’Brien from character-O’Brien. How much of Riggan is invented, and how much of it is actually Keaton? Just incase Keaton’s similarities to Riggan weren’t enough to bring up this type of discussion, Edward Norton also shares quite a few traits with his character within the movie, Mike Shiner.

One other similarity between Birdman and the works we’ve experienced so far is the inability to tell what is real and what is fiction. Throughout the movie Riggan sees and hears his character Birdman talking to him. Riggan seems to have powers of flight and telekinesis when he’s alone. There are several moments where it is suggested that these “powers” are just a figment of his mind, and that the actual results can be explained away by normal actions. However, the final scene subverts these moments. In the final scene Riggan lies in a hospital bed, in recovery after a failed suicide attempt. While his daughter leaves to get some water for his flowers, Riggan climbs out of the window and appears to take off in flight. This image is supported by the fact that when Riggan’s daughter returns and looks out the open window, she is not alarmed, but rather overjoyed. This would suggest that Riggan did have these powers throughout the whole movie, and now the viewer is unsure of what to believe.

I however, think this ending has a different meaning that can be explained by use of the subtitle, “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance”. It appears to me that the final ending never actually occurs. The hospital scene is actually a sort of afterlife imaging on the behalf of Riggan, perhaps comparable to that of Peyton Farquhar in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In this afterlife, Riggan finally receives acceptance and love from the public, his daughter, his wife, and his manager. The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, then, would be to believe that all of this actually occurred, and that Riggan finally reaches a point of happiness. This relies on ignorance of the reality, however, that Riggan is actually dead, having committed suicide at the end of his play. I am not sure if this is the correct interpretation of the movie, and I wish we could discuss it in class. It had so many similarities to the novels that we have been reading so far!

Connecting Through Tim O'Brien

As I reflect upon Tom O’Brien’s novel for my essay, I can’t help but relate his fictional stories to my uncle.  Sifting through the exhausting amount of text that I can choose for my quotations, I wonder whether the things O’Brien mentions actually occur in real life.  I wonder whether my Uncle Lance carried grenades in his belt, or whether he actually sprinted to each wounded soldier amidst an ongoing battle.  Did Lance once see villages decimated from napalm airstrikes? Were bodies burning everywhere?  I can’t imagine, nor do I want to.  Why do I call attention to these thoughts?  I believe that O’Brien’s fictional stories can be meaningful because they create an emotional connection between the reader and the novel’s characters.  I personally connected with the stories of the soldiers through my Uncle Lance, who served in Afghanistan for four years as a medic.  I try to envision Lance running to help Tim O’Brien when he is shot.  My personal connection with Lance made me fear for both him and the main character.

I think that author Tim O’Brien’s story can also connect with others like it did with me because of the prevalence of war in our society.  Nearly everyone knows someone that currently serves, or has served in a war.   Because so many people have some sort of relationship with a war veteran or current soldier, I believe that this story deeply connects with people, as it did with me.  This profound connection gives this fictional text a non-fictional appearance.

Concentration is Overrated Anyway

Having no idea what to write for this blog, and with the attention span of a goldfish hopped up on Red Bull, I instead finished watching an interview on Conan of most of the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is now on the fast track to becoming the next show I binge watch. In this interview they are all talking about the first time that they met Danny DeVito, and how the first thing he told the rest of the cast in this lunch meeting was a story he described as him ‘bullshitting.’ The story was vague and consisted of something to do with a box of teeth and watches, and wouldn’t have been interesting except for one comment DeVito made about it: you’ll never forget that person.

This, to me, ties into a lot of what we have studied this year, and into Casey’s blog post this week. Danny DeVito was lying to manipulate his crew members (to be honest, I think that is a lot of what comedy is), the same way we might lie to someone about their attire to spare their feelings. There is even a reason that we lie to ourselves, as Vonnegut points out with his construction of Bokononism.

The truth about lies is that they are never pointless, otherwise we would save ourselves the trouble and just tell the truth. Think back on any lie that comes to mind that you have ever told, even or especially to yourself, and see if you can’t find a motivation for doing so. I can’t come up with any, but maybe I’m just lying because it supports my argument.

P.S. Here’s the interview: http://www.brobible.com/entertainment/article/danny-devito-it-always-sunny-stories/

Through my first draft I find....

For some reason, while reading Shitty First Drafts, I kept imagining a room, not quite unlike the ones you see on A&E's Hoarders, except instead of the room being filled with unnecessary items, it was filled with words. Words upon words upon words cluttering the room that promises claustrophobia and panic to weigh down on anyone who enters. I know it's a weird thought (however, I doubt Anne Lamott's hypnotist would think so), but I think that's how I've always seen the prospect of writing a paper; me against a whole lot of words that I have to sift through until I can get something worth a grain of salt (or a teacher's stamp of approval). I think what stands between myself (and many others) and a second draft is having to write the first one. Call it laziness, the want to be organically, naturally perfect, or a sense of attachment to your first born, but leaving the first draft is hard. Granted, I've never turned in something that wasn't edited or changed (I even changed around the second sentence of this blog post), but writing the second draft demands more attention and direction, making it the more brutal and frustrating to write. 

In Perfectionism, Lamott condemns tidiness and rejoices over clutter. I disagree. As my roommates could tell you, I don't do well with clutter. It's not that I keep everything organized and clean constantly, but that I make little messes then clean them up thoroughly, instead of letting the smaller messes become big ones that take more effort to remedy. This reflects my writing process. I have never sat down, written an entire paper, and waited only until the end to go back, reread, and edit what I wrote. I will write a paragraph or two, edit it, then, and only when I am completely satisfied, will I move on to the next stage of the paper. If I had a whole lot of cluttered pages, I would become completely overwhelmed and be more inclined to give up. My process gives me a sense of perseverance and security. And Lamott is right, successful perseverance does feel sublime.

With this Cat's Cradle and The Things They Carried essay, I have decided to try writing a shitty first draft. No stopping after a few paragraphs--I am determined to sit down and write three pages without altering a thing. This could be a shit show, or I could enjoy the process. I guess I'll find out...

Obsession with Lying

I wasn’t sure what to write about this week, so I just started thinking about lies. I remember as a kid, I was a compulsive liar, it’s actually a little worrisome when I look back on it. And I would tell a lot of the lies to my parents. I wonder if they ever sat down and said “What the fuck do we do with this kid?” But don’t worry, I grew out of it, I actually find it hard to lie now. But I think there is something about it that people enjoy. Robert Feldman of the University of Massachusetts found that people will tell two to three lies in a ten minute conversation. That’s like 100 lies a day, if you’re quiet. That’s what I should’ve given up for lent, just to see if I could do it. So what are we lying about all day? Sure, a majority of them are white lies, but still. I’m sure some of them are to not hurt people feelings, like no, that’s not a grandma sweater. Maybe others make us look cool, like, yeah I chugged 14 beers last night. I think sometimes a lot of the times we just get lazy, saying yes it’s my shirt is easier than explaining it’s your cousins friends sister’s who left it at your house after a family party. I don’t really count these as bad lies, because they don’t hurt anyone, or really even affect anyone. So I’m still clueless. I don’t know why I loved lying as a kid, and I don’t know why we lie so much day-to-day. I thought by the end of my post I would have reached a conclusion about something, but I’ve got nothing. Maybe this is just my shitty first draft, but if you guys have any idea, let me know.

Trust the Process

I’m going to be honest- I don’t entirely know what to write about here. On that note… here it goes.

Reading “Shitty First Drafts” and “Perfectionism” made me feel a little bit better because I could relate to many things Anne Lamott said. For example, on page 23 she talked about how she would sit down to write and panic would set in after she first started writing. I am a bit of a perfectionist myself, so when I go to write, I get frustrated when I write something that is really bad or if I can’t think of something really good to say. With this upcoming essay, I am really going to try to listen to the advice Lamott gave. When I write an essay, how I normally start is by making an outline where I just purge everything I might want to say. I’m going to do that with this outline, and then I’m going to do it again with my first draft. I’m hoping I can learn to “trust the process” (Pg. 25) like Lamott says to do, and that it will make me a better writer.

Writers On Writing

While reading Shitty First Drafts I was reminded on this NYU Gallatin School course I took last year called "Writers On Writing." In the class we read a bunch of pieces by different writers on specifically why they write and what their personal writing process looks like. We read pieces by George Orwell, Joan Didion, Rilke, and Grace Paley, among others. I think it is really interesting to look into how different authors write. They all have different processes. Of course, these readings were slightly different because they were in the context of creative writing. However, I think academic and creative writing share similar problems. Writer's block is just as prevalent in both fields of writing and can be overcome through similar methods.

Viruses

After reading “Shitty First Drafts” and “Perfectionism”, I have more confidence writing my first draft of my essay. I know that seems like a complete oxymoron, because the likelihood that my first draft will be anything close to good is slim to none. “Shitty First Drafts” exposed the insecurities many writers, myself included, face. I loved the quote when the author says, “The right words and sentences just do not come poring out like ticker tape.” (Lamott, 22) I have always struggled to translate the thoughts that are going on in my head into coherent logical sentences. A huge contributor to that is the pressure to be perfect.  We are so determined to make sure we have the most colloquial and beautiful piece of work we get distracted from the true value of what we are trying to articulate. Theses “voices” are viruses that infect our healthy pieces of work. They break down self-esteem and the courage to go outside our comfort zones. In Shitty First Drafts, Lamott describes a method to try and isolate and tune out these voices. She says, “Isolate one of the voices and imagine the person is a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar… Then put the lid on and watch all the mouse people clawing at the glass.” (Lamott, 27) Although this is a somewhat grotesque analogy, I think it is extremely powerful.  Theses voices undermined our confidence in our originality; however, personifying the voices into an inferior being, gives us back our power and voice. Taking control of theses negative factors helps to establish a strong independent voice. The biggest things I take away from reading these pieces, is I have to write some pretty bad shit in order to find the good. It is a process that takes time. I have to try and eliminate and turn down the volume of those voices constantly putting down my work, because then I can begin to see the power in my own written word.