Shoddy First Drafts
Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird refreshes the vigor and verve in the act of writing. Too much for a first sentence? Probably, but let’s roll with it.
A friend recommended the book when I told her my plan for this month: write one post a day. Bird by Bird helps with deadline-induced anxiety. Lamott’s biggest piece of advice (her opinion) is shitty first drafts. Sit down and write. The rest will follow. No writer (or almost no writer¹) perfects a story, an article, a blog post on the first go.
Today is day eight of writing for 30 days. The second-week doldrums, the post novelty slump sets in about now.
And so, Lamott’s words come in hand: write sh*tty first drafts. No one will read them (it’s a random post on Medium).²
So much of my anxiety as a writer comes from the desire to say something meaningful, to convince others, to set up logical arguments, and then walk readers through them. If anyone (besides the few friends who are semi-obligated to read this as a pact of mutual masochism) reads this, then great. If not, no big deal.
This is a first draft. I gave myself thirty minutes to write something today. The time is all I can afford. Writing, editing, posting. All under 30 minutes.³
To say that setting limits on the time allocated to write is liberating would be dramatic? Simplistic? Trite? All of the above. Yet, in the same way that forcing myself to write every day helps overcome the anxiety of writing something long-winded and verbose, writing something in only thirty minutes helps overcome the need to obsess over everything. I even managed to put footnotes in.⁴
Actually, the time limit reminds me of high school. The height of timed writing. AP tests came with a blue booklet and the grim certainty that in 45 minutes and a gray side of my hand (sinister problems⁵), the gantlet would be run.⁶
In many ways, that is what this writing experiment is — traveling back to high school. Time: 31:04 (okay, so I failed). Well, there is always tomorrow to write another shoddy first draft.
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[1] It makes you think about famous writers. How bad were their first drafts? Could I compete with the early scratchings of Hemingway? Give me thirty years and a couple of hundred gallons of ink and could 5 pages of mine compete with Tolstoy or Austen? No, but what if?
[2] Okay, Lamott’s first drafts were truly private. This is only somewhat private — until my brother runs for office or something.
[3] With over 20 minutes left, I am feeling pretty good at this point. Though, watch, I am sure the worrying about editing will emerge in a few minutes…watch this footnote be at the end of the post, that would be embarrassing/funny to the five people that read this post.
[4] Like a pre-pubescent David Foster Wallace.
[5] left-handed but saying hand twice in three words seemed like too much.
[6] I probably used this much passive voice in high school too. College broke that but the corporate email grind has resurrected it (clearly).
