Shitty First Drafts

After reading Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" I have a new outlook on the process of writing an essay. Ms. Lamott advises that when first writing an essay, the first draft should be written with a care-free and no rules type of writing style. Even if the first draft's writing is poorly written, and in some cases not understandable, Ms. Lamott believes that as long as something is written down it is acceptable.During the four years og high school I would be assigned various amounts of essays that would have to be written in class, and graded on the same day. With Ms. Lamotts viewpoint that it is almost impossible to write a perfect essay on the first draft, I strongly disagree with the writing methods that were taught to me in high school.

When writing an essay, I usually start by brainstorming ideas,themes, and the main ideas of what I am writing about. In a way, I follow Ms. Lamott's strategy by writing down whatever comes to mind on my brainstorm page. From there, I go through my list of ideas and pick and choose what ideas come together and make sense to form an essay. Once I have the essential topics that I will involve in my essay, I organize them in a sequential order in the form of which I will write. After I have all of these planning techniques set in stone, I begin to write my essay following the guidelines of the outline that I wrote. Once I am done with the essay, I read through it, check for grammatical and structural mistakes in my essay and rewrite it so that it flows, and makes logical sense. From, here I make sure to get a few peer editors to look over my essay, to see if they have any input to better my essay. Once this process is finished my paper is ready to be handed in. 

My writing is a flock of birds who start scattered on a big oak tree, but then fly up and  try to maintain a perfect v shape formation for their entire flying period. It starts out with ideas and thoughts all over the place in no particular order, but then as the steps of my writing follow, the essay becomes more organized and well thought out.