signs of stendhal

This excerpt from Bird by Bird is considered pretty classic among my composition colleagues, including good friend and fellow writer Emily, who recently reminded me to brush up on Lamott’s most famous lesson: let yourself write shitty first drafts. And you know Lamott knows what she’s talking about, because I’ve never read a more accurate description of the initial writing process:

I’d sit down at my desk with my notes and try to write… 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.

I’m grateful a seasoned writer lifted the curtain shrouding her creative wizard, confirming that all of us suffer from “the fear that people would find [our] first draft before [we] could rewrite it.” Horror! So if you are also a self-berating writer, do yourself a favor and embrace her conclusion that “[a]lmost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something — anything — down on paper.”