In Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, bestselling author, Anne Lamott, has a chapter on writing shitty first drafts.

She says:

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, 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 . . . 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. . . .

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. . . . 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.

I read Bird by Bird over a decade ago, and I still think of Anne Lamott’s suggestion every time I start to write something new. What do you think? Have you written a shitty first draft lately? As always, I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. News about my own book, which I fondly refer to as The Little Engine That Could: according to Amazon Bestsellers Sales Ranking, as of this week, Seeking Sara Summers is in top 2% of all BOOKS on Amazon and top 4% of all Kindle books!

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“What is to give light, must endure burning.”  – motto of The Sun magazine

“I grapple with having equal proportions of narcissism and low self-esteem.” – Anne Lamott

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings. – Victor Hugo

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. – Ernest Hemingway 

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London

 ”When your heart speaks, take good notes.” – Judith Campbell

 ”Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi

 ”A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcos Cicero

“Above all, be the heroine of your life. Not the victim.” – Nora Ephron

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” - Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD)

“What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.” –  John Irving

“If I were in solitary confinement, I’d never write another novel, and probably not keep a journal, but I’d write poetry, because poems, you see, are between God and me.” May Sarton

“I work continuously within the shadow of failure. For every novel that makes it to my publisher’s desk, there are at least five or six that died on the way.” Gail Godwin

“Twenty years from now you will more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.  – Mark Twain

Do you have a favorite? I’d love to hear from you! Also, if you have any quotes that are personal favorites about writing and creativity, send them my way. I’m always looking for new ones.

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How often do you get one of those truly great ideas in life and you forget to write it down? So many good ideas, even epiphanies, come to us at inconvenient times: the middle of the night, the middle of a meeting, in the shower, or whenever. Our muse has a mind and a schedule of her own that doesn’t always respect or honor our timing of things.

As Sam Horn, author of Pop! Stand Out in Any Crowd, says about our muse, “All it asks is that when it gives us an idea, we write it down. As long as we do, it’ll keep coming around.” I have borrowed her phrase, Muse It Or Lose It, for this article. She also has a section in her book called: Ink It When You Think It.

One of my latest manuscripts, currently being shopped around by my agent, is called Wildflower. I had not planned on writing this novel. In fact, I swore to myself, as someone born and raised in the southern United States, that I would never, ever, write southern fiction. I had enough scary, weird characters in my gene pool. I didn’t feel the need to explore all the dynamics in a novel. But never say never, right?

In the middle of the night, several years ago now, a voice began speaking in my imagination. It was the main character of this novel I swore I would never write, telling me her story. In fact, she was practically dictating the book to me. I have had enough experience with characters and ideas showing up that I knew that if I didn’t get up and start writing it down that I would lose it. In fact, this character might even find some other writer to tell her story to. So even though I could have really used that night’s sleep and the year or so that followed where I was carefully working and reworking her story, I feel good that I took responsibility for it.

I know all this sounds a little crazy, but I’m southern; I feel like I’m allowed. I’m also an ex-shrink so I know I’m not dealing with mental illness, just the process of creativity. There is something very mysterious about how stories and ideas are born. After 14 years of writing, I’m almost convinced that they choose us, instead of us choosing them.

Mystery aside, and on the purely practical end of things, it’s important to write things down. Anne Lamott, devotes a whole chapter in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, to 3×5 index cards. She is never without them. Of course this doesn’t work for everybody. You may prefer a note pad or want to use your Blackberry or have the memory of an elephant and never need to write anything down. But it is crucial to take action and claim it.

When you get an idea for an article or a story, or you start hearing a stream of dialogue in your imagination, you are being given a gift. Think twice before you turn down this gift because it may not return. I truly believe that if you honor your muse, your muse will honor you.

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