Shitty First Drafts

Excerpt from bird by bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lammott

Shitty First Drafts

Anne Lamott from Bird by Bird

Born in San Francisco in 1954, Anne Lamott is a graduate of Goucher College

in Baltimore and is the author of six novels, including Rosie (1983), Crooked Little

Heart (1997), All New People (2000), and Blue Shoes (2002). She has also been the

food reviewer for California magazine, a book reviewer for Mademoiselle, and a

regular contributor to Salon’s “Mothers Who Think.” Her nonfiction books include

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year (1993), in which she

describes her adventures as a single parent, and Tender Mercies: Some Thoughts on

Faith (1999), in which she charts her journey toward faith in God.

In the following selection, taken from Lamott’s popular book about writing,

Bird by Bird (1994), she argues for the need to let go and write those “shitty first

drafts” that lead to clarity and sometimes brilliance in our second and third drafts.

Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of

shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good

second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers who

are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think

that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling

great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they

have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their

necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages

as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some

very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal

of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and

confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but

we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that

God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest

friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image

when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)

Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do

they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff

warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the

snow. One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to

himself nicely, "It's not like you don't have a choice, because you do -- you can

either type, or kill yourself." We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those

writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and

sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time. Now,

Muriel Spark is said to have felt that she was taking dictation from God every

morning -- sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone, typing away,

humming. But this is a very hostile and aggressive position. One might hope for bad

things to rain down on a person like this.

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the

only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

The first draft is 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 that you can shape it

later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions

come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, "Well, so

what, Mr. Poopy Pants?," you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to

get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all

down on paper because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that

you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be

something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just

love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be

writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go -- but there was no

way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.

I used to write food reviews for California magazine before it folded. (My writing

food reviews had nothing to do with the magazine folding, although every single

review did cause a couple of canceled subscriptions. Some readers took umbrage at

my comparing mounds of vegetable puree with various ex-presidents' brains.) These

reviews always took two days to write. First I'd go to a restaurant several times with

a few opinionated, articulate friends in tow. I'd sit there writing down everything

anyone said that was at all interesting or funny. Then on the following Monday I'd

sit down at my desk with my notes and try to write the review. Even after I'd been

doing this for years, panic would set in. I'd try to write a lead, but instead I'd write a

couple of dreadful sentences, XX them out, try again, XX everything out, and then

feel despair and worry settle on my chest like an x-ray apron. It's over, I'd think

calmly. I'm not going to be able to get the magic to work this time. I'm ruined. I'm

through. I'm toast. Maybe, I'd think, I can get my old job back as a clerk-typist. But

probably not. I'd get up and study my teeth in the mirror for a while. Then I'd stop,

remember to breathe, make a few phone calls, hit the kitchen and chow down.

Eventually I'd go back and sit down at my desk, and sigh for the next ten minutes.

Finally I would pick up my one-inch picture frame, stare into it as if for the answer,

and every time the answer would come: 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.

So I'd start writing without reining myself in. It was almost just typing, just

making my fingers move. And the writing would be terrible. I'd write a lead

paragraph that was a whole page, even though the entire review could only be three

pages long, and then I'd start writing up descriptions of the food, one dish at a time,

bird by bird, and the critics would be sitting on my shoulders, commenting like

cartoon characters. They'd be pretending to snore, or rolling their eyes at my

overwrought descriptions, no matter how hard I tried to tone those descriptions

down, no matter how conscious I was of what a friend said to me gently in my early

days of restaurant reviewing. "Annie," she said, "it is just a piece of chicken. It is just

a bit of cake."

But because by then I had been writing for so long, I would eventually let myself

trust the process -- sort of, more or less. I'd write a first draft that was maybe twice

as long as it should be, with a self-indulgent and boring beginning, stupefying

descriptions of the meal, lots of quotes from my black-humored friends that made

them sound more like the Manson girls than food lovers, and no ending to speak of.

The whole thing would be so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the

day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second

draft. I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe that the accident

had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my

mind was shot.

The next day, I'd sit down, go through it all with a colored pen, take out

everything I possibly could, find a new lead somewhere on the second page, figure

out a kicky place to end it, and then write a second draft. It always turned out fine,

sometimes even funny and weird and helpful. I'd go over it one more time and mail

it in.

Then, a month later, when it was time for another review, the whole process

would start again, complete with the fears that people would find my first draft

before I could rewrite it.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start

somewhere. Start by getting something -- anything -- down on paper. A friend of

mine says that the first draft is the down draft -- you just get it down. The second

draft is the up draft -- you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more

accurately. 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.