I really needed to read pages 20-31 in Bird by Bird. Not because I had to for this assignment, but because these pages centered on one of my biggest problems as a writer. Pages 21-27 focus on the idea of a shitty first draft, something that I’ve talked about with my peers in multiple classes. Despite the fact that I’ve had this idea pounded into my head for almost two semesters, it’s just now starting to take root. First drafts, as said in BBB, are supposed to be crap. They’re supposed to suck. First drafts are essentially word vomit. We, as writers, have to get something out in order to make anything at all. This ties in with perfectionism, the other topic discussed on pages 27-31. I’m still trying to get over my own perfectionism because I can tell that it holds me back from writing. It keeps me from word vomiting and getting something down on the page. For me, I look at my writing, sentence by sentence, and see every minute error and immediately decide that what I’m working on is shit and should never ever be seen by anyone. My partner typically looks at my work while I’m like this (picture a very tired education major reading one paragraph while a very dramatic and inconsolable writer is face-down on the floor contemplating suicide), and then she’ll say, “I like it” or “There are some errors, sure, but aren’t you still figuring it out?”. Even my partner understands the importance of first drafts, but my perfectionism gets in the way of truly getting anything done. Lately, I’ve really just tried to write without worrying about making it “good”. I think Lamott summarizes this well when she writes, “You can still discover new treasures under all those piles [of clutter], clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip” (pg 28-29). Clutter, in essence, can be beautiful. It shows us that we are human, and what is writing without humanity? I guess I do need to get a grip on perfectionism. I really enjoyed the exercise on page 27, where Lamott says to turn the voices in your head into a little mouse and then lock it away in a jar. It seems like a good way to minimize the effect of whatever you’re telling yourself. Also, the imagery is pretty humorous.
For “Shitty First Drafts” I really appreciated the fact that Anne urges us to think of the first draft as a child’s draft. Thinking of the first draft that way really helps as well as knowing that no one ever really has to see your first draft if you don’t want them to. Learning the skill of just slamming stuff on the page is going to be really helpful in the long run because you can get all your ideas out there and just leave it alone for a few days if you want to. I know that many of us edit as we write because of how things were done in highschool. Personally, my english teachers in high school would have us write whole essays in one class period, that’s probably where this strategy of editing as you go came from. I also really like that Anne puts in stories from their own experiences with anxiety while writing. I really related to the cycle they described when they were writing food reviews, anxiety as you write the draft, work through it and get the final product, send it away, then the cycle starts all over as the next food review deadline comes. I’m sure many of us can relate to that aspect.
For “Perfectionism” I really enjoyed the quote “Tidiness makes me think of held breath.” This definitely puts perfectionism into perspective as well as the tonsil example Anne gave. Perfectionism restricts our brain from being creative and forces us to harshly critique our writing as it is happening, sometime before it even lands on the page. Learning to just let loose and throw down whatever is happening in our brain is going to be a very hard thing to learn but it’s going to be extremely rewarding in the end.
There were many concepts that stuck with me during this reading of Bird by Bird that made me appreciate this process even more. Both chapters felt like I was being exposed because I am a person who is a perfectionist and thinks that every draft I write needs to be perfect. This reading showed me that it doesn’t and it almost lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I have definitely been very confused and anxious during this whole process because I constantly feel like what I am writing is bad or doesn’t make sense and I loved being able to read this and just know that I’m not the only one that thinks that. It can be very intimidating writing your own short story for the first time, and one part that stuck out to me on page 22 said “the first draft is the child draft where you let it all pour out, and let it romp all over the place” (22). I like how it said “child draft” almost as if you are watching a “child” mature and start their journey from that first form of life. I think the biggest aspect I forget is that it’s ok for things to be messy and all over the place because no one is going to see that side of it in reality. The last part I wanted to mention that changed my view on everything was on page 32 where it said “messes are an artist’s true friend… what people forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find who we are… and what we are supposed to write about” (32). I thought this really spoke to me personally and how it can be hard for me to put away those “voices” in my head when I write, and just focus on throwing out any idea I have even if it doesn’t make sense because that’s what makes the final product that much better.
Once again I found myself thoroughly enjoying Bird by Bird. Specifically the first reading we did in this section “Shitty First Drafts”. Concretely, I found that I have a very easy time reading and actually listening to the words of this writer, as it is writing in such a way that it feels as though you are simply having a conversation with them about their experiences. “Shitty First Drafts” was a piece that really resonated with me, as I find that I am all too familiar with the mindset that this author cautions you of having. Being my own harshest critic while writing a first draft is my biggest downfall. So much so that I find myself not being able to write because of it, due to the fact that I think it sounds “shitty”. What resonated the most with me is that this experience is completely normal and actually expected from a writer. The first draft is never going to be good. It is simply a stepping stone to getting where your piece of writing will reach its full potential. The section on “Perfectionism” gave me a similar message as I find myself falling victim to this as well. Once I am able to recognize this within myself as the author has, I believe that not only will my writing become stronger, but that I will be happier with the final piece that I produce.
I thoroughly enjoy this book. Lamott’s humorous advice on first drafts and perfectionism ease some of my anxiety I’ve been experiencing surrounding the stories we’re creating and the drafts we’re submitting. Logically, I know no one will care, but illogically it’s really easy to let my brain run rampant and tell me I’ll never write a legible word of English again. It’s comforting to hear someone of Lamott’s stature voice the same thoughts and feelings I have surrounding this process, and it’s even better knowing that I can overcome it. I also really like how she elaborates on her process. I’ve never really been the person to spill my guts out onto the page and edit it all later, but her viewing her first draft as a piece of work (a shitty piece of work but still work nonetheless) made it a little more possible for me to start inhabiting those processes.
This reading was, yet again, very reassuring and quite lovely to read. I think most people struggle with being hypercritical of their work and Lamott seems to truly understand that. She discusses how all first drafts are going to be shitty. First drafts are for the word vomit and for getting every single idea pinging about your brain onto the page. No, it won’t sound good. No, the structure won’t be ideal. No, you may not even keep most of it. But at least those ideas are on the page and out of your mind. Then, once you’ve moved in to the second draft you can start to refine your ideas and figure out what belongs and where it belongs and how to make it sounds somewhat readable. Lamott understands that one of the biggest plagues of the writing process is perfectionism. It goes hand in hand with shitty first drafts because the perfectionist wants absolutely nothing to do with shitty anything. But alas, the perfectionism must get over itself in order to truly open your mind up to the creativity needed to write well.
The thing that I really appreciated in this reading was seeing that every time you write it won’t be perfect. Your drafts don’t have to perfect and they are just ways for you to get your ideas on the table and then move on from there. I am very much a person who writes only one draft and just tears the entire thing apart each time you look at the paper. I just liked seeing that it would be okay for you to have more than one draft and rework ideas each time. What stuck with me through the reading was the idea of perfectionism. This is something that I struggle with and is the the bane of my writing existence. Being able to see that perfectionism is common in most people and isn’t always bad, is something I appreciated. It helps me see that I am not the only one who struggle with this aspect. The idea of the reading that resonated with me the most was the idea of “word vomit”, just essentially throwing things up onto the page and then going back and fixing it. It seems really important to get the ideas out and then see where to go from there. I know I struggle with being okay with putting things on the page and then fixing them, I always want to just immediately start editing once I write a single word and this showed me that not being a perfectionist is okay.
Lamott has a way of keeping you engaged by using (sometimes surprisingly dark) humor in a way that makes you feel like you’re engaged in a conversation with him rather than reading a chapter in a book. While both of these chapters resonated with me, the one that stood out to me the most was ‘Perfectionism.’ While I have read numerous testimonies to the importance of ‘Shitty First Drafts,’ the message that I needed to hear the most was that “perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor” (28) and “will ruin your writing” (28). Lamott emphasizes that clutter is important because it shows life is being lived. I struggle a lot with this in my writing. I want to write a perfect draft the first time, and then only have to make minor edits afterward. I don’t want clutter and tend to see it as a failure and a waste of my time. But Lamott’s advice to allow myself “to be more compassionate company” with myself was very reassuring and eye opening. It was a much needed reminder that I need to take some pressure off and just let my creative thoughts flow rather than suppressing them and ending up with a refined and cut down version of what could’ve been a great story.
I love the idea that all writers write shitty first drafts, even the most popular and well sold ones. When I was younger and thinking about my writing, I hated writing shitty first drafts. I wanted everything to be perfect and I was under the impression that everyone wrote perfect first drafts. I mean, how could my favorite author write a bad first draft when their book was so good? But now that I’m older I know everyone writes shitty first drafts, and it’s always reassuring to hear actual authors reinstate that fact. What Lamott writes at the end of the first paragraph on page 22 really sticks with me. The idea that you might get something truly spectacular out of your shitty first draft, like find one sentence or inkling that speaks to you that you might not have found had you not written the other bad pages, really speaks to me. Writing doesn’t always have to be good, but it can help you find exactly what you need to keep going.
It’s so funny to hear writers talk about the “voices” or “editors” in their head and describe them in such ways because I feel like it’s something I read about in all my writing books and something many people probably experience, but I don’t. I don’t have the editor telling me everything sucks, or the voice telling me to keep writing (sometimes that one may happen but not always) but so many people seem to have these voices or people in their head.
Ah, perfectionism. I am 100% a perfectionist, but not so much with my writing anymore. I believe that what Lamott said is very true. Perfectionism ruins first drafts and even second ones, and can even ruin the final product. Nothing will ever be perfect, even if we want it to be, but that’s in the beauty of writing. I used to try and make everything I wrote perfect, even the first draft, because I despised drafting and editing with a passion. It was also something that made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. However, with years of writing experience, I’ve come to realize that my work will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I love it any less. In fact, I think I love some of the more imperfect work than the ones closer to perfection.
I really enjoy how easy it is to read the chapters in Bird by Bird. They are short and easily digestible with humor as well. The writer is easy to relate to as well. In these two passages, something specific that stuck with me was the idea of just writing terrible drafts, knowing that eventually you will find something that can lead you to a better second draft. I like the idea of the first draft being a “down draft” the second being the “up draft” and the final draft the “dental draft.” That analogy specifically is something I will try to remember while writing in the future. In my own words, I came away thinking that when writing, I need to cross the limit in order to know where the limit even is. If I try to be perfect from the start, I will never realize my true potential.
I feel like I am guilty of being a perfectionist when it comes to writing. I like to sit down, get through a draft, making sure it was exactly the way I wanted it, then never touch it again. For me, this started in high school when I realized that I was pretty ok at writing. I would wait until the last minute, do one draft, turn it in, and get a 90. I didn’t learn the importance of a shitty first draft until my freshman year of college. One quote that I liked was on page 22 that said “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it.” One of the biggest hurdles for writers, new or old, is actually starting writing. Nobody wants to have a shitty first draft, having something you created referred to as shitty, is pretty shitty. But I feel like the whole idea of the shitty first draft that Lamott is referring to is just about not worrying about the quality of your writing. Knowing that your work isn’t set in stone once you finish for the day but that you can improve it over time is an important mindset to have. One of my biggest struggles when I sit down to write something is actually starting to write and not procrastinating the process. It takes practice but it is important to be accepting of the shitty first drafts to have amazing later drafts.
I really appreciate how easy it is to read the chapters, it’s like someone is personally explaining and breaking writing down for me. I enjoy in both chapters how they compare personal stories and experiences to the topic of first drafts and perfectionism. The last sentence in Perfectionism really stood out to me when it said “What people somehow forget to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here-and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.” This reminds me to not be so hard on my writing and it’s ok to have mistakes because then we can learn and fix them.
Within pages 21-32 of “Bird By Bird,” I really enjoyed how the author switched back and forth smoothly from giving advice to telling a story or recalling a memory. It keeps you on you toes, not knowing what the author will say or describe next and I find myself grasping on to every piece of advice or relatable insight. One quote I loved from the Perfectionism chapter on page 28 was as follows, “I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone right, you won’t have to die.” This quote represented just how intimidating writing can be, and how it often can feel that if we fail, it is the end of our creative career. When in reality, perfection is not what makes us grow, failure is.
After reading this chapter, I have decided that Anne Lamott totally has my heart. Throughout both chapters she has made me smile, laugh out loud, and simultaneously crushed me with the weight of incontestable writing truths. These chapters are incredibly relatable, and the way she describes the challenges makes for a humorous and lighter read of some heavy topics. She breaks down the writing process, something that is commonly romanticized and thought to be a rather elegant process. Anne takes this fantasy and stomps on it, splattering the true and authentic yucky parts of the writing process all over the page. She reassures us writers that, “Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground,” (pg 28) and urges us not to be afraid of writing what she calls the mess that is shitty first drafts. She tells us, “very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it.” And I find this quote to be really impactful. This makes me think of the ‘the power of yet’, a concept stressed in my GUST seminar freshman year. It is the way we help kids change their mindsets from fixed to growth. It is how we overcome challenges and persevere. Even though Anne doesn’t mention this concept, I think a lot of what she says relates to it. Just because you have not written what you want to write yet, does not mean you can’t or that you wont.
The first drafts we make are never going to be everything we dream of. At best, they’ll be okay, something where you read it and don’t immediately want to throw your laptop across the room. At worst, they’re something that has been word vomited on, and, now that all the ideas are down on paper, you start searching for the good or anything that can be passed off as good with some metaphorical make-up. I procrastinate pretty often, so there are times when the first draft is what I’m handing in, whether I like it or not. I don’t think this makes me a better writer, but I like to think it makes me more confident and familiar in coming to terms with a first draft.
It’s nice to remember that no one is perfect. That we read these beautiful, life-changing books, and the author behind them definitely had more days where they thought it was going to be horrible rather than what the readers saw it as. Creating art is just… the worst and the best. Why would authors and artists and anyone struggle through this process and have imposter syndrome just to come back and do it again? It’s a question I ask myself every time I sit down to write. It’s also a question that is answered when I watch the words on the screen appear and come together, even if they’re coming together horribly. There’s just something, for me at least, that is so wonderful and addicting about writing. Maybe I’ll be able to put it down in words one day.
I really resonate with Lamott’s thoughts and humor on writing. I’ve related to a lot of the things she says and I really enjoy this universal experience in the writing community. I struggle a ton with shitty first drafts and perfectionism, it’s a big reason why I don’t write as much as I want to. It’s hard for me to accept that your first draft will be embarrassing and terrible. Even in this class, just simply writing in a literal creative writing class is more difficult than it should be. It’s nice to hear from a writer in a book that she published that even her work wasn’t perfect all the time, and even then, “perfect” writing doesn’t exist. Either way, knowing and believing even the most talented artists don’t publish their first draft of anything and if they do it’d probably suck a lot more than a revised version. I’m really looking forward to reading this book and I think it holds a lot of meaning for all of us, even you Jesse.
I will be honest and say that I have never been the biggest fan of reading, or writing. When I am in the process of reading any book, I tend to not be interested in what I am reading. It might be just because I don’t care about what it is I am reading, or it might be because in my past reading classes back in high school I never had a good experience when it came to being taught how to understand a book and how to write a proper paper. From what I remember, we were told that when preparing to write a paper, just write only an outline and make it a bullet list, and that will help you to guide your way through your thought process to create what you want to create. Truthfully, that never helped me with anything I wrote. Teachers from school always saw a rough draft as a waste of time and saw a bulleted outline as an easy writing guide.I would have much rather been told to write a whole draft of my paper and then edit that over and over again until I am as satisfied as I can with it.
After reading the first few sections in Bird By Bird, I have come to enjoy this reading. It is an easy read to follow along with and is easy to understand what the author is trying to say to us readers. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these past two sections “Shitty First Drafts” and “Perfectionism.” It really resonates with me to hear that other people struggle with their writing and it’s just not me who struggles. Whenever I am writing a paper, whether it be my short story or a research paper for my labs, I am always starting over because to me it sounds terrible and not something that I would read. But, after reading Lamott’s words, it is okay to not get it right the first couple of times around. It’s going to take a few frustrating screams to get it right, to my liking. Also, it sits with me that it’s okay to not be a perfectionist when making first drafts. I am 100% a perfectionist and I suffer a great deal from OCD, so everything I do pretty much has to be perfect. I have learned from my years here at college that it’s okay to not be perfect. Having a perfect paper doesn’t necessarily make a better paper, and that is something that I will always think about when writing.
There were several points to this reading that I really liked. One was the description of the voices in the head you get when writing; the Reader Lady, the German male, your, parents, the dogs, etc. Almost all of these voices are the exact ones I hear, or at least very similar to them. I found the mice in a jar method very interesting, and it’s something I would like to try next time I write. I also liked the analogy of chewing gum after a tonsil removal. Stopping perfectionism from cramping those muscles, and allowing wounds to heal, is a very different way of looking at writing and perfectionism, and one that I found to be very insightful.
I also enjoyed the author’s explanation of their writing process during their time working for the magazine; it was very funny, and something I wish I was capable of. Although I am working to get better at it, I still struggle with rewrites and drastic edits, because even if I’m not trying to be perfect or even good, it’s still hard to get the words out there, so I don’t like the idea of just getting rid of so many of them.
18 thoughts on “JORUNAL #4”
I really needed to read pages 20-31 in Bird by Bird. Not because I had to for this assignment, but because these pages centered on one of my biggest problems as a writer. Pages 21-27 focus on the idea of a shitty first draft, something that I’ve talked about with my peers in multiple classes. Despite the fact that I’ve had this idea pounded into my head for almost two semesters, it’s just now starting to take root. First drafts, as said in BBB, are supposed to be crap. They’re supposed to suck. First drafts are essentially word vomit. We, as writers, have to get something out in order to make anything at all. This ties in with perfectionism, the other topic discussed on pages 27-31. I’m still trying to get over my own perfectionism because I can tell that it holds me back from writing. It keeps me from word vomiting and getting something down on the page. For me, I look at my writing, sentence by sentence, and see every minute error and immediately decide that what I’m working on is shit and should never ever be seen by anyone. My partner typically looks at my work while I’m like this (picture a very tired education major reading one paragraph while a very dramatic and inconsolable writer is face-down on the floor contemplating suicide), and then she’ll say, “I like it” or “There are some errors, sure, but aren’t you still figuring it out?”. Even my partner understands the importance of first drafts, but my perfectionism gets in the way of truly getting anything done. Lately, I’ve really just tried to write without worrying about making it “good”. I think Lamott summarizes this well when she writes, “You can still discover new treasures under all those piles [of clutter], clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip” (pg 28-29). Clutter, in essence, can be beautiful. It shows us that we are human, and what is writing without humanity? I guess I do need to get a grip on perfectionism. I really enjoyed the exercise on page 27, where Lamott says to turn the voices in your head into a little mouse and then lock it away in a jar. It seems like a good way to minimize the effect of whatever you’re telling yourself. Also, the imagery is pretty humorous.
For “Shitty First Drafts” I really appreciated the fact that Anne urges us to think of the first draft as a child’s draft. Thinking of the first draft that way really helps as well as knowing that no one ever really has to see your first draft if you don’t want them to. Learning the skill of just slamming stuff on the page is going to be really helpful in the long run because you can get all your ideas out there and just leave it alone for a few days if you want to. I know that many of us edit as we write because of how things were done in highschool. Personally, my english teachers in high school would have us write whole essays in one class period, that’s probably where this strategy of editing as you go came from. I also really like that Anne puts in stories from their own experiences with anxiety while writing. I really related to the cycle they described when they were writing food reviews, anxiety as you write the draft, work through it and get the final product, send it away, then the cycle starts all over as the next food review deadline comes. I’m sure many of us can relate to that aspect.
For “Perfectionism” I really enjoyed the quote “Tidiness makes me think of held breath.” This definitely puts perfectionism into perspective as well as the tonsil example Anne gave. Perfectionism restricts our brain from being creative and forces us to harshly critique our writing as it is happening, sometime before it even lands on the page. Learning to just let loose and throw down whatever is happening in our brain is going to be a very hard thing to learn but it’s going to be extremely rewarding in the end.
There were many concepts that stuck with me during this reading of Bird by Bird that made me appreciate this process even more. Both chapters felt like I was being exposed because I am a person who is a perfectionist and thinks that every draft I write needs to be perfect. This reading showed me that it doesn’t and it almost lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I have definitely been very confused and anxious during this whole process because I constantly feel like what I am writing is bad or doesn’t make sense and I loved being able to read this and just know that I’m not the only one that thinks that. It can be very intimidating writing your own short story for the first time, and one part that stuck out to me on page 22 said “the first draft is the child draft where you let it all pour out, and let it romp all over the place” (22). I like how it said “child draft” almost as if you are watching a “child” mature and start their journey from that first form of life. I think the biggest aspect I forget is that it’s ok for things to be messy and all over the place because no one is going to see that side of it in reality. The last part I wanted to mention that changed my view on everything was on page 32 where it said “messes are an artist’s true friend… what people forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find who we are… and what we are supposed to write about” (32). I thought this really spoke to me personally and how it can be hard for me to put away those “voices” in my head when I write, and just focus on throwing out any idea I have even if it doesn’t make sense because that’s what makes the final product that much better.
Once again I found myself thoroughly enjoying Bird by Bird. Specifically the first reading we did in this section “Shitty First Drafts”. Concretely, I found that I have a very easy time reading and actually listening to the words of this writer, as it is writing in such a way that it feels as though you are simply having a conversation with them about their experiences. “Shitty First Drafts” was a piece that really resonated with me, as I find that I am all too familiar with the mindset that this author cautions you of having. Being my own harshest critic while writing a first draft is my biggest downfall. So much so that I find myself not being able to write because of it, due to the fact that I think it sounds “shitty”. What resonated the most with me is that this experience is completely normal and actually expected from a writer. The first draft is never going to be good. It is simply a stepping stone to getting where your piece of writing will reach its full potential. The section on “Perfectionism” gave me a similar message as I find myself falling victim to this as well. Once I am able to recognize this within myself as the author has, I believe that not only will my writing become stronger, but that I will be happier with the final piece that I produce.
I thoroughly enjoy this book. Lamott’s humorous advice on first drafts and perfectionism ease some of my anxiety I’ve been experiencing surrounding the stories we’re creating and the drafts we’re submitting. Logically, I know no one will care, but illogically it’s really easy to let my brain run rampant and tell me I’ll never write a legible word of English again. It’s comforting to hear someone of Lamott’s stature voice the same thoughts and feelings I have surrounding this process, and it’s even better knowing that I can overcome it. I also really like how she elaborates on her process. I’ve never really been the person to spill my guts out onto the page and edit it all later, but her viewing her first draft as a piece of work (a shitty piece of work but still work nonetheless) made it a little more possible for me to start inhabiting those processes.
This reading was, yet again, very reassuring and quite lovely to read. I think most people struggle with being hypercritical of their work and Lamott seems to truly understand that. She discusses how all first drafts are going to be shitty. First drafts are for the word vomit and for getting every single idea pinging about your brain onto the page. No, it won’t sound good. No, the structure won’t be ideal. No, you may not even keep most of it. But at least those ideas are on the page and out of your mind. Then, once you’ve moved in to the second draft you can start to refine your ideas and figure out what belongs and where it belongs and how to make it sounds somewhat readable. Lamott understands that one of the biggest plagues of the writing process is perfectionism. It goes hand in hand with shitty first drafts because the perfectionist wants absolutely nothing to do with shitty anything. But alas, the perfectionism must get over itself in order to truly open your mind up to the creativity needed to write well.
The thing that I really appreciated in this reading was seeing that every time you write it won’t be perfect. Your drafts don’t have to perfect and they are just ways for you to get your ideas on the table and then move on from there. I am very much a person who writes only one draft and just tears the entire thing apart each time you look at the paper. I just liked seeing that it would be okay for you to have more than one draft and rework ideas each time. What stuck with me through the reading was the idea of perfectionism. This is something that I struggle with and is the the bane of my writing existence. Being able to see that perfectionism is common in most people and isn’t always bad, is something I appreciated. It helps me see that I am not the only one who struggle with this aspect. The idea of the reading that resonated with me the most was the idea of “word vomit”, just essentially throwing things up onto the page and then going back and fixing it. It seems really important to get the ideas out and then see where to go from there. I know I struggle with being okay with putting things on the page and then fixing them, I always want to just immediately start editing once I write a single word and this showed me that not being a perfectionist is okay.
Lamott has a way of keeping you engaged by using (sometimes surprisingly dark) humor in a way that makes you feel like you’re engaged in a conversation with him rather than reading a chapter in a book. While both of these chapters resonated with me, the one that stood out to me the most was ‘Perfectionism.’ While I have read numerous testimonies to the importance of ‘Shitty First Drafts,’ the message that I needed to hear the most was that “perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor” (28) and “will ruin your writing” (28). Lamott emphasizes that clutter is important because it shows life is being lived. I struggle a lot with this in my writing. I want to write a perfect draft the first time, and then only have to make minor edits afterward. I don’t want clutter and tend to see it as a failure and a waste of my time. But Lamott’s advice to allow myself “to be more compassionate company” with myself was very reassuring and eye opening. It was a much needed reminder that I need to take some pressure off and just let my creative thoughts flow rather than suppressing them and ending up with a refined and cut down version of what could’ve been a great story.
I love the idea that all writers write shitty first drafts, even the most popular and well sold ones. When I was younger and thinking about my writing, I hated writing shitty first drafts. I wanted everything to be perfect and I was under the impression that everyone wrote perfect first drafts. I mean, how could my favorite author write a bad first draft when their book was so good? But now that I’m older I know everyone writes shitty first drafts, and it’s always reassuring to hear actual authors reinstate that fact. What Lamott writes at the end of the first paragraph on page 22 really sticks with me. The idea that you might get something truly spectacular out of your shitty first draft, like find one sentence or inkling that speaks to you that you might not have found had you not written the other bad pages, really speaks to me. Writing doesn’t always have to be good, but it can help you find exactly what you need to keep going.
It’s so funny to hear writers talk about the “voices” or “editors” in their head and describe them in such ways because I feel like it’s something I read about in all my writing books and something many people probably experience, but I don’t. I don’t have the editor telling me everything sucks, or the voice telling me to keep writing (sometimes that one may happen but not always) but so many people seem to have these voices or people in their head.
Ah, perfectionism. I am 100% a perfectionist, but not so much with my writing anymore. I believe that what Lamott said is very true. Perfectionism ruins first drafts and even second ones, and can even ruin the final product. Nothing will ever be perfect, even if we want it to be, but that’s in the beauty of writing. I used to try and make everything I wrote perfect, even the first draft, because I despised drafting and editing with a passion. It was also something that made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. However, with years of writing experience, I’ve come to realize that my work will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I love it any less. In fact, I think I love some of the more imperfect work than the ones closer to perfection.
I really enjoy how easy it is to read the chapters in Bird by Bird. They are short and easily digestible with humor as well. The writer is easy to relate to as well. In these two passages, something specific that stuck with me was the idea of just writing terrible drafts, knowing that eventually you will find something that can lead you to a better second draft. I like the idea of the first draft being a “down draft” the second being the “up draft” and the final draft the “dental draft.” That analogy specifically is something I will try to remember while writing in the future. In my own words, I came away thinking that when writing, I need to cross the limit in order to know where the limit even is. If I try to be perfect from the start, I will never realize my true potential.
I feel like I am guilty of being a perfectionist when it comes to writing. I like to sit down, get through a draft, making sure it was exactly the way I wanted it, then never touch it again. For me, this started in high school when I realized that I was pretty ok at writing. I would wait until the last minute, do one draft, turn it in, and get a 90. I didn’t learn the importance of a shitty first draft until my freshman year of college. One quote that I liked was on page 22 that said “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it.” One of the biggest hurdles for writers, new or old, is actually starting writing. Nobody wants to have a shitty first draft, having something you created referred to as shitty, is pretty shitty. But I feel like the whole idea of the shitty first draft that Lamott is referring to is just about not worrying about the quality of your writing. Knowing that your work isn’t set in stone once you finish for the day but that you can improve it over time is an important mindset to have. One of my biggest struggles when I sit down to write something is actually starting to write and not procrastinating the process. It takes practice but it is important to be accepting of the shitty first drafts to have amazing later drafts.
I really appreciate how easy it is to read the chapters, it’s like someone is personally explaining and breaking writing down for me. I enjoy in both chapters how they compare personal stories and experiences to the topic of first drafts and perfectionism. The last sentence in Perfectionism really stood out to me when it said “What people somehow forget to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here-and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.” This reminds me to not be so hard on my writing and it’s ok to have mistakes because then we can learn and fix them.
Within pages 21-32 of “Bird By Bird,” I really enjoyed how the author switched back and forth smoothly from giving advice to telling a story or recalling a memory. It keeps you on you toes, not knowing what the author will say or describe next and I find myself grasping on to every piece of advice or relatable insight. One quote I loved from the Perfectionism chapter on page 28 was as follows, “I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone right, you won’t have to die.” This quote represented just how intimidating writing can be, and how it often can feel that if we fail, it is the end of our creative career. When in reality, perfection is not what makes us grow, failure is.
After reading this chapter, I have decided that Anne Lamott totally has my heart. Throughout both chapters she has made me smile, laugh out loud, and simultaneously crushed me with the weight of incontestable writing truths. These chapters are incredibly relatable, and the way she describes the challenges makes for a humorous and lighter read of some heavy topics. She breaks down the writing process, something that is commonly romanticized and thought to be a rather elegant process. Anne takes this fantasy and stomps on it, splattering the true and authentic yucky parts of the writing process all over the page. She reassures us writers that, “Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground,” (pg 28) and urges us not to be afraid of writing what she calls the mess that is shitty first drafts. She tells us, “very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it.” And I find this quote to be really impactful. This makes me think of the ‘the power of yet’, a concept stressed in my GUST seminar freshman year. It is the way we help kids change their mindsets from fixed to growth. It is how we overcome challenges and persevere. Even though Anne doesn’t mention this concept, I think a lot of what she says relates to it. Just because you have not written what you want to write yet, does not mean you can’t or that you wont.
The first drafts we make are never going to be everything we dream of. At best, they’ll be okay, something where you read it and don’t immediately want to throw your laptop across the room. At worst, they’re something that has been word vomited on, and, now that all the ideas are down on paper, you start searching for the good or anything that can be passed off as good with some metaphorical make-up. I procrastinate pretty often, so there are times when the first draft is what I’m handing in, whether I like it or not. I don’t think this makes me a better writer, but I like to think it makes me more confident and familiar in coming to terms with a first draft.
It’s nice to remember that no one is perfect. That we read these beautiful, life-changing books, and the author behind them definitely had more days where they thought it was going to be horrible rather than what the readers saw it as. Creating art is just… the worst and the best. Why would authors and artists and anyone struggle through this process and have imposter syndrome just to come back and do it again? It’s a question I ask myself every time I sit down to write. It’s also a question that is answered when I watch the words on the screen appear and come together, even if they’re coming together horribly. There’s just something, for me at least, that is so wonderful and addicting about writing. Maybe I’ll be able to put it down in words one day.
I really resonate with Lamott’s thoughts and humor on writing. I’ve related to a lot of the things she says and I really enjoy this universal experience in the writing community. I struggle a ton with shitty first drafts and perfectionism, it’s a big reason why I don’t write as much as I want to. It’s hard for me to accept that your first draft will be embarrassing and terrible. Even in this class, just simply writing in a literal creative writing class is more difficult than it should be. It’s nice to hear from a writer in a book that she published that even her work wasn’t perfect all the time, and even then, “perfect” writing doesn’t exist. Either way, knowing and believing even the most talented artists don’t publish their first draft of anything and if they do it’d probably suck a lot more than a revised version. I’m really looking forward to reading this book and I think it holds a lot of meaning for all of us, even you Jesse.
I will be honest and say that I have never been the biggest fan of reading, or writing. When I am in the process of reading any book, I tend to not be interested in what I am reading. It might be just because I don’t care about what it is I am reading, or it might be because in my past reading classes back in high school I never had a good experience when it came to being taught how to understand a book and how to write a proper paper. From what I remember, we were told that when preparing to write a paper, just write only an outline and make it a bullet list, and that will help you to guide your way through your thought process to create what you want to create. Truthfully, that never helped me with anything I wrote. Teachers from school always saw a rough draft as a waste of time and saw a bulleted outline as an easy writing guide.I would have much rather been told to write a whole draft of my paper and then edit that over and over again until I am as satisfied as I can with it.
After reading the first few sections in Bird By Bird, I have come to enjoy this reading. It is an easy read to follow along with and is easy to understand what the author is trying to say to us readers. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these past two sections “Shitty First Drafts” and “Perfectionism.” It really resonates with me to hear that other people struggle with their writing and it’s just not me who struggles. Whenever I am writing a paper, whether it be my short story or a research paper for my labs, I am always starting over because to me it sounds terrible and not something that I would read. But, after reading Lamott’s words, it is okay to not get it right the first couple of times around. It’s going to take a few frustrating screams to get it right, to my liking. Also, it sits with me that it’s okay to not be a perfectionist when making first drafts. I am 100% a perfectionist and I suffer a great deal from OCD, so everything I do pretty much has to be perfect. I have learned from my years here at college that it’s okay to not be perfect. Having a perfect paper doesn’t necessarily make a better paper, and that is something that I will always think about when writing.
There were several points to this reading that I really liked. One was the description of the voices in the head you get when writing; the Reader Lady, the German male, your, parents, the dogs, etc. Almost all of these voices are the exact ones I hear, or at least very similar to them. I found the mice in a jar method very interesting, and it’s something I would like to try next time I write. I also liked the analogy of chewing gum after a tonsil removal. Stopping perfectionism from cramping those muscles, and allowing wounds to heal, is a very different way of looking at writing and perfectionism, and one that I found to be very insightful.
I also enjoyed the author’s explanation of their writing process during their time working for the magazine; it was very funny, and something I wish I was capable of. Although I am working to get better at it, I still struggle with rewrites and drastic edits, because even if I’m not trying to be perfect or even good, it’s still hard to get the words out there, so I don’t like the idea of just getting rid of so many of them.