Shitty First Drafts Review

      In "Shitty First Drafts" by Anne Lamott she describes her writing process and lets the reader in on how she pushes through her writing and what helps her. I found the article to be very interesting overall because of how she approached the idea of what a first draft should be. She even goes as far to say this works for most people and is what most professional authors do, but she does note that their are exceptions to this. The way she looks at first drafts is to write down everything that comes to mind and let there be a free flow of ideas so that you can later take those same ideas like a ball of clay and begin to shape it into anything you do so wish. The reason why this idea struck me so is because it goes against everything we were taught as far back as elementary school. While some of the ideas do aline for example a first draft is meant to be revised in the end and that like a ball of clay you can shape it as you see fit; however their is one thing that sticks out and that is she feels that the ideas should in a sense pour out without any limitations. This is where what most children were taught differently than her. From a very young age we are taught to put a filter on our writing from the start this is meant to have more refined ideas in our first drafts and this will put minimal effort into thinking what a second and third draft needs. What she is suggesting is that we remove that filter and it is a great way to look at writing even in a school setting for example when we are taught to put a filter on our writing from the start this makes writing a first draft that much harder on the author and once you do have a first draft it makes harder to write your second and third drafts because you have already put a filter on your writing and tried to make it as perfect as possible. Now when a writer simply lets their ideas flow out onto the page it makes it that much easier to write. The author then ends up with more then they need in their second and third drafts their are now able to revise more by taking certain ideas and lines and even added or incorporating much more then they original intended to.