Description Read: Ann Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts." Remember to keep marking up the text as you ...
Description Read: Ann Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts." Remember to keep marking up the text as you read it. Write: Part I: Spend 15 to 20 minutes free writing a response to the article. What did you learn from it? Part II: Write the first complete draft of your "Be Interested! essay. It does not yet need to be perfected, but work towards polishing it. Include a "Works Cited" page ( MLA PURDUE ). Part III: include the bibliographic information (following MLA style) of the sources you found in Monday's class. 2 attachments Slide 1 of 2 attachment_1 attachment_1 attachment_2 attachment_2 UNFORMATTED ATTACHMENT PREVIEW Shitty First Drafts 4 Anne Lamott from Bird by Bird Born in San Francisco in 1954, Anne Lamott is a graduate of Goucher College in Baltimore and is the author of six novels, including Rosie (1983), Crooked Little Heart (1997), All New People (2000), and Blue Shoes (2002). She has also been the food reviewer for California magazine, a book reviewer for Mademoiselle, and a regular contributor to Salon’s “Mothers Who Think.” Her nonfiction books include Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year (1993), in which she describes her adventures as a single parent, and Tender Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999), in which she charts her journey toward faith in God. In the following selection, taken from Lamott’s popular book about writing, Bird by Bird (1994), she argues for the need to let go and write those “shitty first drafts” that lead to clarity and sometimes brilliance in our second and third drafts. 1 2 3 Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.) Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow. One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, "It's not like you don't have a choice, because you do -- you can either type, or kill yourself." We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time. Now, Muriel Spark is said to have felt that she was taking dictation from God every morning -- sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone, typing away, humming. But this is a very hostile and aggressive position. One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this. 5 6 7 For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. 1 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. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, "Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?," you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you're supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go -- but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages. I used to write food reviews for California magazine before it folded. (My writing food reviews had nothing to do with the magazine folding, although every single review did cause a couple of canceled subscriptions. Some readers took umbrage at my comparing mounds of vegetable puree with various ex-presidents' brains.) These reviews always took two days to write. First I'd go to a restaurant several times with a few opinionated, articulate friends in tow. I'd sit there writing down everything anyone said that was at all interesting or funny. Then on the following Monday I'd sit down at my desk with my notes and try to write the review. Even after I'd been doing this for years, panic would set in. I'd try to write a lead, but instead I'd write a couple of dreadful sentences, XX them out, try again, XX everything out, and then feel despair and worry settle on my chest like an x-ray apron. It's over, I'd think calmly. I'm not going to be able to get the magic to work this time. I'm ruined. I'm through. I'm toast. Maybe, I'd think, I can get my old job back as a clerk-typist. But probably not. I'd get up and study my teeth in the mirror for a while. Then I'd stop, remember to breathe, make a few phone calls, hit the kitchen and chow down. Eventually I'd go back and sit down at my desk, and sigh for the next ten minutes. Finally I would pick up my one-inch picture frame, stare into it as if for the answer, and every time the answer would come: all I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft of, say, the opening paragraph. And no one was going to see it. So I'd start writing without reining myself in. It was almost just typing, just making my fingers move. And the writing would be terrible. I'd write a lead paragraph that was a whole page, even though the entire review could only be three pages long, and then I'd start writing up descriptions of the food, one dish at a time, bird by bird, and the critics would be sitting on my shoulders, commenting like cartoon characters. They'd be pretending to snore, or rolling their eyes at my overwrought descriptions, no matter how hard I tried to tone those descriptions down, no matter how conscious I was of what a friend said to me gently in my early days of restaurant reviewing. "Annie," she said, "it is just a piece of chicken. It is just a bit of cake." But because by then I had been writing for so long, I would eventually let myself trust the process -- sort of, more or less. I'd write a first draft that was maybe twice as long as it should be, with a self-indulgent and boring beginning, stupefying descriptions of the meal, lots of quotes from my black-humored friends that made them sound more like the Manson girls than food lovers, and no ending to speak of. The whole thing would be so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft. I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe that the accident had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot. 8 9 10 The next day, I'd sit down, go through it all with a colored pen, take out everything I possibly could, find a new lead somewhere on the second page, figure out a kicky place to end it, and then write a second draft. It always turned out fine, sometimes even funny and weird and helpful. I'd go over it one more time and mail it in. Then, a month later, when it was time for another review, the whole process would start again, complete with the fears that people would find my first draft before I could rewrite it. Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something -- anything -- down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft -- you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft -- you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy. 1. Lamott says that the perceptions most people have of how writers work is different from the reality of the work itself. She refers to this in paragraph 1 as “the fantasy of the uninitiated.” What does she mean? 2. In paragraph 7 Lamott refers to a time when, through experience, she “eventually let [herself] trust the process – sort of, more or less.” She is referring to the writing process, of course, but why “more or less”? Do you think that her wariness is personal, or is she speaking for all writers in this regard? Explain. 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. Lamott, Anne. "Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College th Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9 ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005: 93-96. 2 Project 1: Be Interested! The goal of this assignment is to demonstrate your interest and curiosity in an idea or topic. It is probably a good idea to select a topic that you do not know much about at this point, so your exploration of the idea will be an important part of the assignment. You should have a genuine interest in the idea since you will be spending considerable time thinking about and investigating (researching) the idea. You are welcome to extend an earlier piece of writing (EW) that you have already been working on in the course as long as you are sincerely interested in the idea. You may want to use our course readings as samples of authors’ interests in various ideas as you consider your own curiosity and interest in this other idea that you are pursuing. In order to pull this off, you will need to start crafting deep, interesting, complex, and thoughtful questions.Writing is a mode of learning. For this project, you should be discovering NEW information and working with NEW ideas. Once you have gathered sufficient information, write about the idea in a way that demonstrates your curiosity, exploration, understanding, and interest in the idea. Use your EWs, starting questions, sources, and your thoughts to show your committed interest in the idea. Your level of interest in the idea may or may not change based on your exploration. If this prompt seems vague, it is intended to be. You have opportunities to interpret it to the best of your ability, take risks, explore new ideas, and find a way to describe your intellectual journey in a way that is insightful. Because this essay will not be graded until the end of the semester, you have the entire semester to work on it and develop it. I will collect a final draft of the assignment somewhere near the midpoint of the semester. After I offer my feedback, you will have the rest of the semester to continue crafting, revising, and expanding the essay. Requirements: All three of these documents must be included for your Project 1 to be considered “complete.” A. Writer’s Statement: Your writer’s statement is a separate, short essay that explains (substantively) the following: 1. What are you trying to accomplish in this essay? 2. How did you strategically craft/structure your essay? Why? 3. What are you most proud of in this piece and why? 4. Is there any evidence that you are trying to improve your literacy through this process? If so, what is it? 5. What do you want from me? How can I offer a helpful evaluation? B. Final Draft: Final revision in response to peer feedback. This is your absolute best work. C. Previous Draft with Peer Remarks: This is the complete essay you brought to class, peer responses included. Each peer response should be properly labeled with the reviewer’s name. Evaluation: I will respond to the same questions to which your peer reviewers responded. This will not receive a grade, but I will let you know if it meets, exceeds, or fails to live up to grade covenant standards. Please understand that my goal is to get you to think about ways that you can revise this essay and take it to the next level. My comments may be blunt; be prepared for that. My goal is to help you get to a place where you are not satisfied with the draft that you submit. I want to motivate you to revise these essays boldly. And always remember to try to have some fun. Sample questions for response: Does it ask a genuine question or pose a genuine problem? Does it work with thought-provoking sources? Does it show the writer’s mind at work making compelling connections and developing ideas, arguments, or thoughts that are new to the writer? Does it pursue complications (perhaps by using words like but and or)? Is it presented and organized to engage smart, attentive readers? Does it make each word count? Does it meet the three-page minimum length requirement? Is the writer merely trying to hit that length requirement? Does the paper adhere to MLA guidelines? A) Format: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 1-inch margins. 12-point font, Times New Roman. No title-page. Use the same heading as your EWs: Name, Title , Date (single-spaced) No extra lines between paragraphs. 0.5-inch indentations for the first line of a new paragraph. Length: 3-4 pages (no less than 3 complete pages, no more than 4 complete pages). Do not use the 2nd-person voice (“you”); 1st-person and 3rd-person voices are fine. Consult this website for formatting your “Works Cited” page. If you have doubts or concerns about grammar and style, visit the University Writing Center. B) Style and Grammar Guidelines: 1. Use gender inclusive language CORRECT: “one,” “humankind,” “humanity,” “we,” “us” NOT CORRECT: “man,” “mankind” 2. Avoid comma splices a. For example, dependent clauses must be set apart from independent clauses with commas: CORRECT: “If I go to the market, then I will buy milk.” NOT CORRECT: “If I go to the market then I will buy milk.” 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. b. Also, independent clauses cannot be joined by a comma: CORRECT: “I will go to the market and I will buy milk." NOT CORRECT: “I will go to the market, and I will then buy milk.” Use semicolons to separate two similar but independent clauses; USE colons or dashes to introduce a dependent clause—review this exemplary sentence you just read. Avoid sentence fragments (e.g., no declarative sentence begins with “Which"). No contractions. No extra spaces between paragraphs. Place quotation marks OUTSIDE punctuation marks: CORRECT: .” and ,” NOT CORRECT: ”. or ”,). C) Tips for Success Be interested. Be genuinely interested. Avoid second person. You are not preaching to your audience; rather, you are describing YOUR intellectual journey. Your journey is the subject of this essay. Take us (your readers) on that journey, and help us see how/why you have benefited as result. Apply ideas from the following chapters in Habits of the Creative Mind ? On Going Down the Rabbit Hole ? On Writing to a Question ? On Encountering Difficulty (very applicable to this vague assignment) ? On Looking and Looking Again ? On Motivation ? On Seeing as a Writer ? On Reading as a Writer Work with a variety of reliable sources. Most everything published on the internet is unreliable. Let us have some discussions about worthy sources. If you are unsure about a source, bring it to class and we will discuss it. D) Possible topics that you might explore for this essay: ? I am very interested in the Celtic cultures located on the British Isles—Ireland, Scotland, Wales. I may pick one country and study it in depth, exploring questions such as… • What is life like for them? What’s the cost of living? What are their cultural values? How hard would it be for an American to immigrate there? • What is the history of the country? • Does their country have a distinct mythology? What’s that like? (Now, keep in mind that if I try to address all of those questions in a 3-5 page essay, it will probablybe scattered and shallow, and full of undeveloped ideas. I will need to narrow the focus to one of those inquiries and explore that in-depth.) ? What is the history of Buddhism? ? I am intrigued by the novels of Toni Morrison. I may read one of her books and talk about the new ideas I glean from it. ? I have heard that David Foster Wallace is one of the most overrated and pretentious authors of the Baby Boom Generation. Perhaps I should read some of his work and find out? ? People that I know and respect rave about the work of Henry James. Perhaps I should read some of his work and offer my thoughts on it. (His works are really, really long though. Do I have time to read that much before the assignment deadline?) Or maybe Iris Murdoch’s novels instead? They are at least shorter. ? Is it true that students are required to have a 4.0 in order be accepted into the nursing program at IUPUI? I have received conflicting information about this and I would like to get that sorted out. Purchase answer to see full attachment Explanation & Answer: 2 pages User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.
