awkward first draft
August 16th, 2007 by pww
do i ever get it right? i’m not so sure…and definitely not in the present. i can play the events, the attempts, over and over again in my mind, but it leaves me in the same place. i keep trying, and i hope that i always do. it’s just that i wonder if life lived ever stops feeling like an awkward first draft. there are moments when the sentences flow well and it reads effortlessly, but those chapters are often short or interrupted. Then it’s back to a blank sheet of paper and trying to find more ink.
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August 17th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
First drafts are meant to be awkward. They can’t be anything else. They are what comes out first - usually messy, confusing passion that overwhelms rhythm and flow. Wild, crashing rapids that overpower steady and smooth direction. Or sometimes, as author Anne Lamott suggests, first drafts are just plain @#!%.
Writers are supposed to write a first draft with their heart, then come back later and write the second with their head. In life, we sometimes get this chance too. But not always is it for the best. Instead, God redeems our first draft and then renames it a “previous chapter” - already complete, no further drafts necessary or allowed.
Our task, then, is to pick up a blank sheet of paper, find our ink, and start the first draft of the next chapter.
Keep writing, Paul. Don’t ever stop. Even if the first draft is @#!%.
August 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Paul, well said. Right now I’m in the midst of literally writing a first draft–a process I typically dislike (concerning this type of work) because it is like pulling teeth trying to figure out the right order, wording, and phrasing for a long document; I know that regardless of my first efforts, it will be the first draft of at least four. This week I am excited. Exhausted, but excited. Rather than starting with nothing, there are bits and pieces I can pull from here and there. In one section 1 previously written page becomes 6 new pages. I know what I am talking about. Though the structure of the document might change in small ways, there is confidence in this structure.
In some ways, I think this is what life is like. This is still a first draft, but I get to pull on previous experience and knowledge gained along the way. This draft is larger and more challenging than anything before, but I have a foundation on which to base this new challenge.
Somehow, by God’s grace, wisdom will come someday from these experiences.