Tag: shitty first drafts
Commonplace Book Final Reflection
It is very interesting to go back and look at my first impressions of college. I handled it a lot better than I had initially expected. I am very proud of myself for how well I have handled time management, school work, emotions, and stress.
I had a “reality check” during my very first week at Ole Miss. I said “ I have already done more in a week than I did in the first semester of high school.” I almost expected college to be harder than it is, but it is mainly just different. I enjoy the challenges that have been thrown at me. Of course, I did not like them at the time, but they made me much stronger in the long run.
When Mrs. Buckley assigned the first “long” paper, I nearly had an anxiety attack. I was so nervous because I had never written a paper that long before. I realized that I can not half-way do my work and expect a good grade out of it. In highschool, I do not think I wrote a single outline before a paper, but I also had never written a paper longer than a page and a half. I realized when I started to write my first synthesis paper that I would definitely need to plan my paper out in order to have enough to write about.
Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” helped me a lot because it helped me, an extreme perfectionist, realize that writing is a process. Writing is not supposed to be perfect as soon as you begin. It takes a lot of time and patience to write a really good paper.
On one of our daily writes in September, the question was “How have you spent you week?” My answer was, “This week I have spent so much time doing school work and studying. This is how I wanted to spend my week because it makes me feel better in class when I have everything done and studied for.” A few days later I had a mental breakdown. I may have thought this was what I wanted at the time, but really I was overworking myself way too much and really stressing out. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great feeling to have everything done, but there is no need to put this much pressure on yourself. You are a human being. It is okay to take a break and do something for yourself. The human body can only handle so much. I think that self-care is one of the most important things to manage in college.
I have grown so much as a person throughout my first semester of college. I have learned that it is okay to not be perfect. If a C is the best you can do in a class, you can not let that define you.
College has definitely been a learning experience full of struggles, but I have learned so much along the way that will make me a better person in the future.
Reading Response 8/23
In Anne Lamott’s “Perfectionism” and “Shitty First Drafts” Lamott states that all great writings begin with awful rough drafts. Thoughts have to be worked through in order to eventually figure out what a person wants to write about. Lamott also states that it is okay to write something that seems stupid at the time because it can eventually lead to something greater. Based on these passages, I believe that it is okay to not have everything perfect. For instance, when a person makes a mistake usually it teaches them something in the long run that they could have never known if they would not have messed up.
Lamott states in “Perfectionism” that “Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.” This quote means that worrying about the messes a person makes in life on the way keeps the person from enjoying it. If someone is so distracted by their failures then they will not be able to see their accomplishments.
She also writes in “Shitty First Drafts” 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.” It is okay to be messy at first if it helps a person get their thoughts aligned. A person should write like a child speaks. Children do not know any better so they say whatever comes to mind. Therefore, a person should be free with their writing and let it run rampant.
Both passages explain that writing is most effective when the writer is not worried about perfection in the first or even second draft. Great writing is a process that takes a lot of time and possibly multiple tries. Although writing seems very tedious at first and is a process of trial and error, it can be a beautiful way to express one’s feelings or concerns.