In the essay “Shitty First Draft” Anne Lamott discusses how a writer’s first draft is not always a perfect paper. Lamont included information about famous writers that she knows and how “The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time” (238). The purpose of the writing is to let the writers know that when you began writing your first draft, it is ok to start writing down words, or to even be lost for words on your first drift.Lamont said that “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” (238-239).
Lamott says in her essay “What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head” (240). I personally feel that this strategy would be very helpful for me.Every time I start to write a paper, there is always something that distracts me from doing my paper, it could be something like a voice that says people will laugh at your paper, because it does not make any sense, or it could be a voice that says you don’t have time to write this paper because you have to cook dinner for your family, or you forgot to pick up the dry cleaning that your husband didn’t pick up yesterday. What I would do now before I write my papers is close my eyes and get quiet for a minute, until all the voices are clear and then I would start writing my paper (241).
