Anne Lamott’s essay, Shitty First Drafts, proves quite entertaining and rings true in many aspects. The one thing that didn’t really relate to me was first drafts being longer than they should be. It depends on what I’m writing about, but I tend to be on the short side. However I do relate to the writer who told Lamott, “He sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, ‘It’s not like you don’t have a choice, because you do — you can either type, or kill yourself.'” And that’s how essays happen as I’m still here. In reality, I know my first draft of anything is going to be terrible and I would rather throw it in a garbage fire before having anyone read it. Hell, someone could read my 501st draft and say it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and I’d still want to throw it in a garbage fire.

Revision Strategy Plan

#1-Goal: Make paper not terrible
Sub-Goals: Work with some of the ideas I got from peer review and play with the moving of paragraphs and quotes

#2-The Plan
1. Review things from peer review
2. Create first draft of new paragraphs
3. Review all paragraphs to see if each has coherent idea
4. Move paragraphs here, there, and everywhere until it works
5. Second draft created
6. Have someone else read it to make sure my point is actually getting across
-If not, go back a few steps
7. Editing for sentence and word level error
8. Product

#3-Challenge
1. “It’s not like you don’t have a choice, because you do — you can either type, or kill yourself.” (I enjoy this quote and using it)
2. I can’t tell if my point is being made well enough or not
3. I missed things that need to be fixed

#4-Over coming
1. Moral support i.e. my girlfriend
2. Literally anyone willing to read my paper
3. Literally anyone willing to read my paper but is also pretty good with English and grammar