Shitty First Drafts

     Prior to reading Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott, I felt as though my first drafts of any kind were supposed to be immaculate - the holy grail of drafts. I felt pressured to impress my peers who helped edit and my superiors who were supposed to evaluate and revise with me. Even with personal writing, I used to get frustrated when the words weren't forming into the magnitude of thought and emotion in my head. I was a mess, to be honest, and still am a mess (sometimes). But after reading Anne's wonderful little article on what's known as the "shitty first draft", my eyes have been opened to a whole new way of looking at the dreaded first draft.
     Lamott uses what she describes as the child's draft approach, where you just get it all out there and let your thoughts and feelings on the topic run wild and free. Then you can edit and fix it up, take tidbits of your child-like mess of a draft, and construct a well-flowing piece of writing. I had never thought to just spill out everything I had to say and then work from there. For a long time I've just been struggling with trying to make sense of it all in my head rather than just getting it all down and looking at it fresh on paper.
     This is something that I've been utilizing with my draft for my seminar on risky play. Instead of my usual struggle to get down a perfect first draft, I went about it the child way and just wrote down whatever I thought on the topic and my experiences with risky play. From there, I found a lot of quotes and pieces that I would be able to bulk up in my essay and expand upon. I also found the best personal experience to use regarding risky play (for the life of me I couldn't decide what childhood story would work best, but getting it ALL out on paper really worked)!
    In my honest opinion, the shitty first draft is now officially something I look forward to rather than something I dread. I encourage everyone to read Lamott's article, especially those struggling with the writing process. If you get rid of the idea that the draft has to be some sacred text of perfection, and focus on letting your inner child wreak havoc on the page instead, I promise you that you'll never look at the first draft the same way again. Who knows, you might even look forward to it!