What I thought about Anne Lamot's "Shitty First Drafts"

Anne Lamot's essay "Shitty First Drafts" made me some what relieved about the way I write. Starting any type of essay has always been a struggle to me and I get beyond frustrated when I write a "shitty first draft". However, after reading this essay, I am relieved to know that I do not stand alone when it comes to starting essays or writing first drafts.  Everything Lamot said about how it is impossible to write a perfect first draft made perfect sense and I am definitely going to keep her advice in the back of my head when I am sitting at my desk pulling my hair out while trying to write my first draft.

My writing style is very interesting and somewhat jumbled. Writing has never been my strong suit so I definitely struggle a little bit. The first thing I do when given a prompt is construct my thesis and the areas of support that back my thesis up. Once I have my areas of support written down somewhere I look for textual evidence or I cite examples for each area of support. This way works best for me because having all of the examples for my essay in front of me before starting my essay helps it be organized and well developed. Once I have all of the necessities to start an essay, I sit down in front of my computer, stare at the screen for about 30 minutes, get a little distracted then start writing my intro. As soon as my intro is done, things begin to come to me a lot easier because I am in the mood to write. I normally write the essay in one sitting and then go back and look for errors and change some sentences around to make it sound perfect.

Writing is a storm for me. I can never accurately see the outcome of a paper and it is never predictable. My writing could be very painful to read or it is barely harmful and could end up being peaceful.