"All good writers write them... the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts."
In Anne Lamott’s humorous and lighthearted piece, she reveals that when it comes to writing, it takes one really shitty draft in order for a writer’s work to sort of emulate that of the Harry Potter series or any other recognized literature like some of Shakespeare’s work. Lamott states in her writing that “all good writers write them.” It makes you question what would Hamlet or Macbeth have been if Shakespeare hadn’t written really shitty first drafts? What would the Harry Potter series have been if Rowling never revised her really shitty first drafts? Writing, although thought to be a form of easily expressing oneself with just a scribble away or maybe even a type away, is not so much about the product but rather the process that it takes writers to create their masterpieces. Throughout her writing, Lamott mantains a lighthearted tone as she shares the struggles of being a writer but also describes the beauty of the recurring cycle and process of kind of barfing out your ideas, letting the characters and story take over, and then becoming your own critic to later then floss out your writing for it to become what you want it to be. Through Lammot’s use of pronouns “I”, “we”, and “they”, we see the perspective of a writer as she describes her first-hand experiences but also takes on the responsibility of representing every other writer by referring to, “we”, the writer community. By addressing with theses pronouns she really does try to build that connection with these writers and readers by pointing out these common struggles of a writer and sort of laughing it out. Her use of colloquialism is what makes her piece so casual and almost conversational, engaging the reader and sort of building that humor that she uses effectively to grab the reader’s attention. Lamott also does this through the use of parenthesis, where she efficiently establishes those side conversations with the readers and says her cunning comments. Using these methods, she gets her message across— a shitty first draft is not a mistake, it is part of the process. Every writer has to be open to change, open to themselves, and open to new ideas in order for their work to echo their message. A person not open to change, is a person not open to success.
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