Annie Lamott’s central argument is that the best way to
write a great piece of writing is to first create a shitty draft. You must
first write down any and everything that comes to your mind in a stream of
consciousness. It can be however long you like, even twice the length of the
final paper. After you finish this, let your thoughts sit for a day and then go
back and review them. You can edit them down however much you like and
hopefully somewhere you will have written an insightful quote or a particularly
catchy lede. Most of the time, it is this process that creates the arc and plot
in your story (or in Lamott’s case, the quirky comments and concise
descriptions about food). You don’t know all of the details that you’re going
to write until you actually start writing them. The more you initially think about your writing the harder
it will be to start. The majority of successful writers at least semi-follow
this method. It is almost impossible to create a perfect first draft.
I believe that Lamott’s article supports the Wikipedia
writing process. Most complete Wikipedia articles have an extensive history
page full of edits and corrections. Any article with information on the history
page is no longer in its first shitty draft. The main difference between Lamott’s writing process and
Wikipedia is that Wikipedia allows any number of people to edit your work as
opposed to a handful of editors. Also, there are no writing qualifications to
be met before becoming a Wikipedia writer so more edits probably have to be
made to make up for some writers poor writing and grammar skills.
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