Week Three

So here is what I generally think about this: It is boring. There. That is my response to "Shitty First Drafts" by Anne Lamott. I mean, really? Everyone with a competent third grade education knows the writing process. It starts with brainstorming, continued with drafting, followed by several stages of revising and editing, and ends with a final polished draft. I really do not see why this has to be the subject of debate. Who in the world thinks that great writers just sit down, writing something, and publish it as is? I have never met anyone with such a skewed perception of the world. Now I know that there are people out there who have not experienced the benefits of free public education, and while it is up to debate about whether or not that is their fault or not, we can agree that there are uneducated, illiterate people living in our towns and communities. Nevertheless, are these the kind of people who enrolling at Penn State and taking English 15? Or better, are these the kind of people that are going to be reading novels and works of non-fiction?

            However, this piece does bring up an interesting method of writing. In the excerpt, she describes the process she goes through to write food reviews. It starts by her gathering observations and quotes from a group of friends about a large variety of food. Then she runs into a roadblock: she does not know where to start the first paragraph. After much procrastination, she just writes everything she can and slowly whittles it down. While this is possible, I am finding difficulty subscribing to the belief that it is the most efficient method to writing, at least for me. My simple, user-friendly alternative is a common enough solution: the outline. Now this may just be a result of my writing history containing mainly persuasive and informative pieces, but I also use outlines for a variety of purposes, including shopping lists and class notes. They are quick, easily adaptable, concise, and are personalizable for your specific needs quickly and easily. They also offer you a first glimpse at your finished product. With an outline, you can get a point across while using half the paper and a quarter of the words as an actual paper. It might not be the most graceful or eloquent, but that is not the point of an outline. A draft of a paper is easy to flesh out from the frame of an outline. Outlines form the content of a paper, and are editable until the flow of ideas and logic is clear and easy to follow. Then the rest of the work can be filled in with sentences and paragraphs, and run through another process of editing for clarity. Then voila! A finished work is in hand, and one is free to take on other tasks.

            The point Anne Lamott is suggesting in “Shitty First Draft” is combining the traditional brainstorming and drafting phases. Rather than have a period where one searches for inspiration, and then takes time to pick the best of the inspired ideas and apply them to the work, she is suggesting using the work as a source and method of inspiration. While I understand where she is coming from, I have my doubts. Personally, I do not foresee this ever producing great work for me. In others, I see if merely encouraging settling for the first idea one comes across, and attempting to write a significant and legitimate work of literature from that first mediocre idea. Whereas a period of brainstorming encourages other ideas to form and blossom, writing straight from the gun can turn into a mess without a meaning quite easily. Or worse yet, the point can be arbitrary, insignificant, or just plain unoriginal, in which case the paper is cursed before it can ever be written.

            In hindsight, I am not sure if I answered any questions, or just created new ones. I attempted to follow Ms. Lamott’s suggestion and just write whatever comes to mind when it does. I am still unsure if this entry is even clear enough to follow. However, I am not nervous about publishing this, as it is merely a blog, and the purpose of the blog is to consistently write on topic relevant to current class material. Therefore, whether or not this essay makes any sense is irrelevant to the fact that I wrote it, and attempted a new writing style while writing it. I feel I fulfilled the requirements in my own method, and if it is not accepted, I will know not to attempt this style again.