Shitty First Drafts - pardon my French

[Dani257]

Have you heard of the Anne Lamott (author of Bird by Bird) philosophy of shitty first drafts? Her advice is to write something and keep writing until it's finished, no matter how bad it is. Once you actually get something down on paper, you have a clear idea of what is good and what needs to be fixed. I'm trying to do this for something I'm writing. I'm kind of lost and meandering. Oh, I manage to write a decent amount each day, but everythig is going in crazy directions, and what little plot I had is just gone kerpluey. Should I still perservere? I have a bad habit of stopping in the middle of stories when things get off track. Should I start over? Should I start trying out the spark I had for a new story, or put that on the back burner until I finish this.

Wondering if Anne Lamott had me in mind.

[rich2003dm]

Angela,

I'm not a writer, though I play one on Epinions.

Keep at it despite the temporary confusion. That's pretty much what I do.

The key is focussing on where you want to go with your topic...and figuring out what works to get you there and eliminating what doesn't. Get all your thoughts down on paper. Then organize, refine, reorganize and re-refine. Eventually it all usually comes together.

I think we all tend to get bored reading our own stuff...draft after draft. By the time I post a review, I'm already sick of it and sure that everyone will hate it. What seems shitty to us because of our overexposure to it in the writing, may be quite fresh and entertaining to someone reading it for the first time. So don't give up.

Rich

[Trebor1415]

When I'm stuck on something I fall back on a mantra of "It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be finished." While it sounds like I'm purposely producing crap, what it really reminds me is to quit worrying about every little thing and get the dammned thing done so I can go back and rewrite and polish it when it's finished. You can't polish stuff that's not on the paper.

On the other hand, you can't polish a turd either, so if something is REALLY off track, taking a step back to figure out what's wrong before blindly moving forward can help. The trick is knowing when to do which.

I hope this helps. I think I just confused myself.

Rob

P.S. the other thing to remember is that we all have to produce a certain amount of crap in our writing as we work to improve. It's all part of the process, so if a particular piece doesn't turn out as well as hoped, try to identify what went wrong and learn for your next effort.