In this section of Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird, she expresses the importance of the drafting process and the different steps that come along with revision. There are multiple parts of the writing process, but the one that is most expressed in Lamott’s writing is the first draft. From the way she puts it, the first draft is built around doing the steps of the writing process, not the product or the quality of work. She says, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something — anything — down on paper.” (2) In saying this, she is showing her views on how important it is to draft your writing first, just to get something down and get your thoughts flowing. I am in strong agreement with this idea, I think drafting is a crucial part of producing good writing. I cannot express my thoughts in writing the way I want them to come out without a second, third, sometimes even fourth draft, nonetheless a first. The first draft is important to me because it just opens my eyes to flow onto the paper because starting a writing project is the hardest part for me. No matter the quality of the writing I am putting on the page, it is the most key part of me developing my thoughts. Lamott makes a point that I find very true, she states, “In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” (1) It is a common idea that what a writer writes in a first draft has to be anywhere close to the final product, in fact, some of the time what I write in a first draft changes my views on an idea entirely.
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