A Shitty Rough Draft Summary

Carson Kincaid

Ms.Holsten

English Comp 101

October 20th, 2015

First Draft Summary

Anne Lamott talks about the struggles of writing a first draft in her paragraph A Shitty Rough Draft. We are taught at a very small age that we need to always make a first draft and revise it before we create the final copy. This is a sometimes daunting task that many of us struggle with. “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it” (Lamott 234) When beginning, they only thing you can do is dive into writing a really shitty first draft (Lamott 234) Writing is difficult and sometimes requires making a few mistakes before coming out with a great end product.

Lamott gives a scenario from when she wrote reviews for magazines and how her process worked. She began with writing down several things and then took off from there. Even after writing for years, panic will set in when trying to initiate the writing process (Lamott 235). Lamott talks about the many drafts she had to write to get her paper just right. The first was a bunch of words put on a paper, the second brought the ideas more together focusing on the main points, and the third was the detailed review she needed to write. Having the time to revise your papers and make a perfect final copy is a relief for all writiers.

Writers don’t have some uncanny ability to just come up with a perfect work off the top

of their heads. A select few do but that’s out of the normal for most writers. It is typically a grueling process that takes time but is worth it in the end. Lamott describes what it feels like to be a writer. You must first let go of all other distractions and just write. Even if it is crap. Trust the process- more or less (Lamott 236) Lamott helps to make light of the issue that many writers have, and shows that even professional writers struggle with the same road blocks in beginning a piece of writing.