Respones to "Shitty First Drafts."
I thought that “Shitty First Drafts� was a fairly interesting article, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. My first drafts are, by no means, superb, but I don’t think that they’re “shitty.� Most of the time, slight modifications to my first draft are sufficient for a decent second draft. However, this varies, and is dependent on how much time, and effort I put into my first draft.
In high-school, I only went through my first drafts in order to correct grammatical errors. A majority of the time, I would receive an A or B on these papers. College is severely different though. For instance, my first draft for this class was, in fact, a piece of “shit.� I mean, it was really horrible. The only thing that prevented me from rewriting it was “Shitty First Drafts.� “Shitty First Drafts� actually made me feel secure, and proud of my “shitty� first draft.
I also liked Lamott’s humorous anecdote regarding her experience at “California Magazine.� It’s nice to know that even professional writers can not just sit down, and type a masterpiece. In fact, she states that her first drafts were so bad that she would be embarrassed is anyone finds them.
Although I agree with Lamott, I don’t know if her theory of revision after revision is always true. I have had experience with this in the form of multiple choice tests. There are always one or two questions that I’m not entirely sure of, so I revise my answer about fifty times. By the time I hand in my test, there are tiny eraser rips on the scantron, and one would not be able to discern which bubble was actually filled in. Anyways, I never correctly answer these questions. Seriously, I’m never right. Maybe the aforementioned example is stupid; however, my best work is occasionally, not all the time, but occasionally, my first draft.