Blogs: Shitty First Drafts

I'm reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, a fantastically funny and informative book that offers "some instructions on writing and life." A typical piece of instruction, taken from the chapter titled "Shitty First Drafts:"

"All good writers write [shitty first drafts]. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)"

First of all, is that not wonderful? Lamott mixes in so many elements -- humor and a relaxed voice, mostly, not to mention a successful, totally tangential parenthetical -- that we can't help but wonder what the first draft of this very paragraph must have looked like.

But mostly, this is incredibly comforting. I'm sure I'm not the only writer who's ever written something I'd rather eat than show to another living soul. Getting over that hump -- making myself just sit down and write and not worry about spitting out polished prose on the first attempt -- is probably the most important thing I've learned in two quarters of a master's writing program. Taking the time to write a shitty first draft and then revise it -- this must be how the great writers do it. Why didn't I realize that before?

I think this is also why we consider blogging such an inferior writing outlet: It's almost always comprised entirely of shitty first drafts. This, what I'm writing right now, is a shitty first draft. I won't revise it, save maybe fixing some spelling errors. I might read it through once, but I'm not going to go back over it and take the time to really craft it. There are way too many people like me out there, throwing up their shitty first drafts all over the Internet.

See? Being a writer is a practice in self-hatred. Being a blogger, doubly so.

So really, thanks for reading. I promise I do actually edit my posts sometimes.