Starting is the hardest thing to do

 

Anne Lamott, in her book on writing called ‘Bird by Bird’, coined the phrase ‘shitty first draft’. She explains that:

‘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. 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.’

Embracing the notion of the shitty first draft is key to being a productive writer.  Silvia argues that your first draft should read like something hastily translated from Icelandic. 

Once you have completed some research (note: not all the research you could ever have read in fantasy land) and you have a fair idea of what you need to do - begin. Write like a child. Don’t worry about what it sounds like as no-one will ever see this draft but you. Your supervisor will not see it. No-one will judge you. Don’t agonise over the first sentence: who cares you will obliterate this later. Just keep going. It might be 6 pages before you have actually said one sensible thing. That is OK. That is what editing is for.

You are in the business of filling in that blank page: that is all. If your end product is meant to be c. 10,000 words, I would expect your shitty first draft to be somewhere in the region of 5,000. It may be unreferenced, it may be missing an entire section or sections. It may be mostly sweeping statements full of nonsense. 

It does not matter. You need to know enough to sketch out the basic argument, but the rest of what you write may well get ditched. Don’t sweat it. You are in the business of throwing paint at the canvass. Nothing more. Let go of the anxiety and start typing.

Importantly, don’t read back anything you write. Don’t use the backspace button to delete words or sentences to try to begin again. This is editing. We are not editing yet. We don’t edit in the shitty first draft. The emphasis is on ‘shitty’. Embrace it.

TODAY I WILL…

  • Update my task list if necessary, or continue on the list from yesterday;

  • Write for 2 hours minimum without using the backspace button (remember you can break up these session with the Pomodoro technique).