"Shitty First Drafts" Summary

Thai Xiong

February 27th, 2014

ENGL1A

         "Shitty First drafts" by Ann Lamott, ingeniously ceases any worries that a writer would or could have. Lammott dismisses the idea commonly thought, that professional writers just sit down and produce masterpieces. Professional, successful writers, like us, still get stumped, and create shitty first drafts as well.

It’s actually not a bad thing! If anything it’s a good thing to create crappy first drafts. So long as you get all your ideas out, far and fetched as they may seem, some of those ideas could be great ideas in the future drafts. When it comes to the first time writing anything, Lammott acknowledges the infamous “writer’s block.” The voices in your head stop you from concentration and focus. Those voices, those concerns; what to cook for dinner, bills, or what shirt to wear, they need to be individually acknowledged briefly and then shut out. Take a deep breathe, and then  get down to putting all your ideas into a crappy paper of ideas.