![]() ![]() It’s important to realize that that’s okay. It won’t sound right it will have grammar mistakes some parts won’t make any sense and others will be off-topic. Sometimes, though not always, your rough draft will be pretty bad. You have to get that down before you can add the subsequent coats in revision. Your first draft is like the first coat of paint. You certainly wouldn’t put on the primer and the final color at the same time. Then you put on a couple coats of the final color. Instead, you start with a coat or two of primer. You don’t put on one coat of paint and call it done. You aren’t creating the final piece of writing in this step. It’s important to understand the definition of a first draft: your first attempt at putting your thoughts into final form. Use the tips below to get through writing a rough draft with less stress and more confidence. But your secondary goal is to make the drafting process as smooth and easy as possible so you won’t resist doing it. Outline into sentences and arrange them into a first draft. Your main goal in this step is to turn the ideas from your But hacking a rough shape out of marble is a heck of lot easier knowing we don’t have to make art of it in one try.Writing a Rough Draft: Make it Fast, Make it Easyĥ step writing process makes writing a rough draft easier, but getting your thoughts on the page is still a challenge. So allow yourself to give shitty first drafts a try - and I say “allow” because as writers, we’re conditioned to want to make our performance perfect on the first run-through at the blank page. I had a draft quickly, and then was able to just spend time shaping it into what I wanted it to be. I remember writing a portion thinking, “This is probably too long,” but I didn’t stop to see what I could cut. I remember writing a sentence thinking, “This is a terrible sentence!” but I didn’t stop to mull over it or tinker with it then. I wrote the first half not checking word count, just wanting to get it out. I wrote the introduction knowing I’d tweak it later. I had loaded up my brain with research the night before, and I just wrote it. And actually, writing a shitty first draft and then revising it is going to take less time, energy, and stress then trying to get your piece right the first time.įor example, I needed to write a piece the other day and time was getting tight. You can add in examples that you missed to round the whole thing out once you have a draft. You can check your facts or add in citations later. Which is why the shitty first draft for articles, blog posts, and courses is even more important. That will certainly up the anxiety for you! It’s a little daunting. Not only do you need to write the thing, but you need to have the right voice for the right audience, make sure the research is correct, send it off in record time, and impress your client with your amazing writing skills so they’ll keep sending you work. Now that I’ve been doing more freelance work, I’m finding myself writing blog posts, articles, courses, and copy for other people, often with research I’m new to, often with a tight turn-around. Even then, a piece of fiction is still my created voice, my characters, my work - there’s still a sense of ownership over it.īut what if what you’re writing isn’t yours, but belongs to someone else? No one may see it until it’s very polished. I may write a shitty first draft of a novel, but then my second and third and forth draft is mine as well. ![]() But there’s a certain element of privacy to those kinds of writing. I mostly hear this in the fiction world, and Lamott uses the example of writing an essay in her book. If you alter your mindset to value having a draft to work off of, and know that writing happens in the revisions, you’re more willing to pound something out just to get it out and start the real work. It takes the performance anxiety out of it, too. The idea of the shitty first draft comes from Anne Lamott’s wonderful writing advice book Bird for Bird, where she writes that “The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.” The idea is simple: Take off the filter, take off the idea of art, and just write, knowing you can come back to it later to rewrite and revise.Įssentially, it takes all the pressure off being brilliant, creative, and articulate. I still treat sitting down to a blank page like the curtain rising on opening night, but I’m learning to embrace the idea of the shitty first draft. Ohhh, I’ve since learned the beautiful benefits of revisions, where you can really chisel the lump of marble into a finely detailed sculpture. I would sit down, capture lightning in a bottle, and that was my art. I used to be a “my first draft is my final draft and it’s perfect” type of writer. ![]()
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