Why does nobody talk about how bad first drafts are supposed to look

I saw this thing from a writer named Anne Lamott where she calls them "shitty first drafts" and it finally clicked for me. For like 3 years I thought I just sucked at writing because my first attempts were always messy and full of garbage. Now I just let myself write whatever junk comes out and fix it later. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized your process was normal the whole time?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy97426d ago

Honestly, is it really that deep? People act like writing a bad first draft is some huge revelation. It's just words on a page, not brain surgery. My first drafts are always a mess and I just fix them, never felt the need to make it a whole thing. Might just be me, but a lot of this feels like overthinking a pretty basic part of writing.

smith.anna26d agoMost Upvoted

Does it bug you how much people make it sound like some huge deal or is it just me not getting the hype?

bennett.jana26d ago

My friend Jenna spent three months on a first chapter once, kept rewriting it over and over because it wasn't perfect. She finally showed it to me and it was honestly fine, but she had built it up so much in her head that she couldn't see it anymore. @amy974 gets it though, like it really is just words on a page that you fix later. After that she just started writing whatever came out and it was way better than anything she had slaved over. People act like that first messy draft is some sacred thing but it's really just a stepping stone to the actual good version lol. You can polish a turd all day, but you still gotta have something to work with first.