Thlog # 4
I want to start this thlog off by saying “I fucking love shitty first drafts”!!! I say this because in the handout we read called “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott; she stresses that in order to gain clarity in your second draft, and sometimes brilliant in your third draft, you must first create the “shitty first draft”.
“The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then 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”(Lamott). This is very familiar to me because I like to write poetry, always have. I have even made my attempts at short stories; it is my dream to one day write a novel. Now when I am in my writing process I find myself just writing whatever flows for me at the moment, and the I go back and revise it, adding things and removing things, until I am satisfied with the final piece. I thought that was just something that I did, maybe because I wasn’t good enough of a writer to compose an amazing piece in my first try. In this text Lamott explains that all writers start with a shitty first draft, like horrible. They too go back and revise it until they are satisfied with the outcome of the final draft before publication.
In your first draft I feel free-writing is the way to go. The reason I say this is because when you free write, it’s raw and uncensored. You are writing from your very core, not caring if it’s socially acceptable or meets the modern literature association’s standards. The only thing churning in your mind is ideas that you are transferring to paper or monitors, and when that flow is over, you can sit back read it and then maybe think of what is missing or what is monotonous. You can look and see if you transitioned it properly or gave enough evidence to support your thesis. It is even suggested that you write a second and even third draft, so that you can continue to build and improve your paper In our class we practiced this method by bringing in hard copies of our first drafts, grouped with classmates and did evaluations on each others work, we then came back with a second draft after being given the evaluations from our peers and repeated the process again.
I found this very effective because it gave me a heads up on what I was lacking in and what my strong points were, and then I was able to compose my papers with the confidence that I had come a long way from my “shitty first draft”.
“The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then 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”(Lamott). This is very familiar to me because I like to write poetry, always have. I have even made my attempts at short stories; it is my dream to one day write a novel. Now when I am in my writing process I find myself just writing whatever flows for me at the moment, and the I go back and revise it, adding things and removing things, until I am satisfied with the final piece. I thought that was just something that I did, maybe because I wasn’t good enough of a writer to compose an amazing piece in my first try. In this text Lamott explains that all writers start with a shitty first draft, like horrible. They too go back and revise it until they are satisfied with the outcome of the final draft before publication.
In your first draft I feel free-writing is the way to go. The reason I say this is because when you free write, it’s raw and uncensored. You are writing from your very core, not caring if it’s socially acceptable or meets the modern literature association’s standards. The only thing churning in your mind is ideas that you are transferring to paper or monitors, and when that flow is over, you can sit back read it and then maybe think of what is missing or what is monotonous. You can look and see if you transitioned it properly or gave enough evidence to support your thesis. It is even suggested that you write a second and even third draft, so that you can continue to build and improve your paper In our class we practiced this method by bringing in hard copies of our first drafts, grouped with classmates and did evaluations on each others work, we then came back with a second draft after being given the evaluations from our peers and repeated the process again.
I found this very effective because it gave me a heads up on what I was lacking in and what my strong points were, and then I was able to compose my papers with the confidence that I had come a long way from my “shitty first draft”.
No comments:
Post a Comment