Journal 3

3. From what Lamott has to say, is writing a first draft more about the product or the process? Do you agree in regard to your own first drafts? Explain.

From what Lamott has to say, writing a first draft is more about the process. She discusses specific steps of her own process. I like how she shares specific examples of how she moves through this process because I go through a lot of the same steps as I go through my own writing process. The first draft never really becomes a product. Even a finished first draft is still just a step in the writing process. One thing that Lamott says that I can really identify with is that most writers don’t just sit down and start writing with ease. I can definitely relate to her initial panic and frustration when she first tries to begin to write. When I get writing assignments for school, I almost always think that I am screwed when I first start to write. I always feel like I am in trouble because I have no idea where I am going to go with my writing. I like that she focuses on the fact that the first draft really does not matter because no one else will see it. I can definitely identify with the way her first draft comes out. At first things that I write make almost no sense, are poorly organized, and often seem to be about five different topics instead of one main topic. Just like Lamott, I always end up cutting large portions of my first draft almost immediately. I can also relate to her first attempt to put words onto the page not working out. This part of her process is something that I also often struggle with. Many times, I will plan on starting a writing assignment well before it is due, but I often end up with nothing written after the first time I sit down to write. I usually sit down to write and then will type then delete the first sentence over and over again before deciding to give up. I often walk away to do something else. Lamott talks about how she makes phone calls or gets something to eat when she gets stuck. I usually do something very similar. Often I will get up and go running or get something to eat. When I return to write, I, like Lamott, begin to put a lot of ideas down onto the page. Many of the entire paragraphs I will later decide to cut out completely. When I read my first draft, I regularly think, “I don’t know why I thought that was at all relevant” because a lot of the things that I wrote had nothing to do with the topic of my paper. I think that writing down things that I will actually later cut out is constructive because it allows me to pick the best examples and ideas. I really like a lot of the ideas that Lamott presents in this piece because I can easily relate to a lot of the things she says. When I was writing my rough draft for my personnel narrative, I followed a process very similar to the one that she discusses.