First Drafts: How they Torture Me

Show of hands:

Who else out there is terrified that someone will read your journals one day?

image from denise wymore

This whole writing thing is gutsy.

From Anne Lammot's Bird by Bird, about when she was writing food reviews for a magazine:

The whole thing [the first draft] would be so long and incoherent and hideous that for the rest of the day I'd obsess about getting creamed by a car before I could write a decent second draft.  I'd worry that people would read what I'd written and believe that the accident had really been a suicide, that I had panicked because my talent was waning and my mind was shot.  

And she was writing food reviews!  Not even poetry or drippy journal entries!  Just articles about how the chicken tasted that night!

Gah.

This months' goal- to write for about 10 minutes a day- produces a lot of "first draft" stuff.  Maybe no second drafts at all.  Just writing.  About nothing.  Like- picture 10 more minutes' worth of this paragraph.   

I've written about two sentences about how I am not afraid to get rid of old journals.  If they are mortifying, and nothing but dry-heaving comes of reading them, then get rid of them.

So I find myself at an impasse.  Should you just write and then get rid of a bunch of stuff that you wrote?  Or keep it all- journal entries, stabs and poetry, reflective writings, etc- and just say "the hell with it" when you think about your kids or relatives reading it one day?

I'm serious.  Tell me.  

Reading About Writing

pic courtesy of sfgate

A few years ago I started reading books by Anne Lamott and was immediately taken with her style of writing.  I read Traveling Mercies, then Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.  I also read some of her novels: Rosie and Crooked Little Heart.

Wow.  I had not realized I read so much of her work until I listed it all out.

I got all of those books from the library or borrowed them from friends.  I really enjoy her essays, a little less so her novels.  I think that, for a period, I didn't know what else to check out at the library so I just kept getting more of her books.  Then I saw Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and bought it.  Like, straight up paid for it with my hard-earned cash.  This is unusual for me.  I have been in a monthly book club for almost three years and have bought maybe three of the books.  The rest- library or borrowed.  What can I say?  I'm a cheapskate. 

Anyway.

I started Bird by Bird, but never finished it.  She writes about (as the title states) writing.  How to start.  How to practice.  Other things.  Strangely, I never finished the one book by Anne Lamott that I actually purchased.  Analyze that, please.   

As is the custom at this point, I am about halfway through the month and find that my joy in this goal is waning.  Oh crap.  It is only the 12th.  So not even halfway.  Darn. 

I think I will resume Bird by Bird.  I could use something thought-provoking. 

Anyone have any other tips for books to read on the topic of writing OR on inspiration for writing in general?

I just know that if I had this setting for my writing, I would write and write all day without a care in the world:

from the lux home

Or I would get settled in my chair and think "Damn this lucite chair that always sticks to the back of my legs!". 

Writer's Block

(photo courtesy of duane-scott.net)

Oh, the irony. My goal for April is to write for 10 minutes a day, and I don't even know where or how to start.

Full disclosure: I've already missed a few days. And it is only the 7th. Yesterday was one of those days where I knew that writing would feel good, but I just couldn't do it. Kind of like exercise. Except, with writing, there is not even any sweat or jiggling involved. So it is, truly, painless.

Ah well- as the hubs said to me last night: "Live in grace". It is not the end of the world if I don't write one day.

So why writing? Well, at the end of March I sought out ideas for an April goal. I got some good ideas back. One idea was even suggested three times, by three different people. That one was- to write. The fact that it was suggested multiple times is not what made me choose it. I just chose it because it sounded simple and enjoyable. Not particularly complicated and doesn't even require that I get out of bed early. Sold.

Back when I was a youngster I told people that when I grew up, I wanted to be an author or an artist. I am neither [sigh]. But I still enjoy writing.

So- there you have it.  Ten minutes' worth of writing about my goal for April.