Meta Shitty First Draft

Anne Lamott talks about Shitty First Drafts in her book, Bird By Bird. She says: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”

We delay starting because the hope for good work (even if the canvas is still blank) still feels better than looking our bad work square in the eye. We don’t want to face the existential dread of failing at something we actually care about. And starting is hard. Starting implies finishing. Woe is us.

The SFD name is brilliant because the language changes how we define victory: It’s now about finishing a draft. If ‘shitty’ is the gold standard here, no need to overthink it. Excellent draft? See you in a year. Shitty draft? I can get you that by lunch.

And because the subject of this post says “Meta shitty first draft”, I inserted a screenshot of my boring shitty first draft of this shitty first draft. (This post was originally created for my newsletter, so you’ll see that draft in Convertkit).

Thanks, Anne.

Cheers to many SFDs this week!
B

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