Right from the start, Lamott makes it clear that a shitty first draft is completely normal. Lamott goes even further by stating that out of every writer that she knows, only one writes an elegant first draft. From my perspective, a shitty first draft is the perfect analogy to trying something new in life. Out of the 7 billion people on our planet, a very small percentage (if any) can complete a task perfectly on their first try. Since the day all of us were birthed, everything we’ve learned or attempted was likely similar to a shitty first draft. Shitty first drafts not only apply to writing, they also pertain to sports, education, parenting, and basically any other task that appears in our daily lives. My personal “shitty first draft” was when I first started playing football. On my first practice, I was by far the worst player on the entire team. But with revision, and fixing my wrong’s, I was able to improve greatly.
From a writing aspect, I completely agree with Lamott’s method. Whenever writing, I struggle with putting all of my ideas onto paper, while also being grammatically correct. Creating a shitty first draft enables me to improve my final paper. In the writing business, or simply in life, nothing will be perfect from the start. Fixing mistakes and improvement over time will always end in a better final result.
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