My reading response to "Shitty First Drafts"
"You got to make a mess in order to clean a mess," is what my mother always said to me. Of course at the time she was referring to me cleaning my room, but it is very relevant to Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts."
Whenever I clean my room I lay everything out on the floor that has been rolled up into a ball or shoved in a corner, hence making a bigger mess than before. I lay it all out so I can see everything I am working with, that is exactly what Lamott is saying to do. She is informing the writers of the world that no one, no matter how skilled they are, can sit down and in one try make the perfect novel. That is where she comes in with the advice. She explains how if you just write mountains of "shit" that in the end when you are rereading your work you can find that one piece of writing "that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be writing about." If you lay all your words out on the paper you can start going through and cleaning up the mess.
The fact that a well published author is encouraging me to sit on my computer and write nonsense until I find my angle or groove comforts me to no end (because trust me I can write some nonsense).
Whenever I clean my room I lay everything out on the floor that has been rolled up into a ball or shoved in a corner, hence making a bigger mess than before. I lay it all out so I can see everything I am working with, that is exactly what Lamott is saying to do. She is informing the writers of the world that no one, no matter how skilled they are, can sit down and in one try make the perfect novel. That is where she comes in with the advice. She explains how if you just write mountains of "shit" that in the end when you are rereading your work you can find that one piece of writing "that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be writing about." If you lay all your words out on the paper you can start going through and cleaning up the mess.
The fact that a well published author is encouraging me to sit on my computer and write nonsense until I find my angle or groove comforts me to no end (because trust me I can write some nonsense).
Just like you I can write some nonsense as well. I am glad you made the reference to your mother because that reference actually helped me as well. I completely have the same outlook on Anne's opinion. She is the best. The fact that it takes laying all of our words out on a paper to get a good one is kind of annoying but you have to do what you have ot do and your post made me understand that.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Hi Maddie
ReplyDeleteI love it how you connected your mother's teaching to the argument of this text, and both of them are absolutely right. It's great to see you extending the knowledge of the text to other areas of your life!