Sometimes I Treat My Laptop Like a Dumpster
And my best writing comes from diving into that big sloppy mess.
One of the first truths of writing that I had to learn (and I’m still learning, actually) is that first drafts include a whole lot of garbage, especially if the topic is something near and dear to my heart.
When I open my computer to start something new — a new story, chapter, essay, poem, even a thought that might or might not turn into something — the words come out in a jumbled mess. I’ll write paragraphs that circle around like a plane that cannot land, sentences awash in dull cliches, and analogies that miss the mark. The ideas that seemed so clear and insightful in my head feel muddy and half-baked once I put them into words.
My fingers itch to cut and paste, revise, delete and rewrite. It’s a physical effort to stop that from happening and force myself to keep forging ahead instead. I’m training myself to save the revisions for later no matter how much it feels like I’m turning my laptop into a dumpster of rambling, bloated sentences because there’s no other way to complete a first draft. Even when moving forward feels wrong because 90% of what I’ve written is simply garbage.
Only 90% trash? That means 10% is valuable.
All those mishmash thoughts have to get onto the page somehow, and sometimes it takes a full download of words to find the ones that matter.
Here is the good news: as with every overflowing dumpster, there are treasures hidden in the trash. That means that once the draft is complete, it’s time to go dumpster diving for those nuggets of truth worth sharing.
Just like in real-life dumpster diving, revisions are messy and taxing. Sometimes you find what you are looking for, sometimes you find a surprise, and sometimes you come up empty. Dumpster diving into my writing project is not much different.
That process starts with questions like, “What is this piece really about?” and “Where does it really begin?” and “WTF did I mean when I wrote that part?”
Then moving paragraphs and sentences around. Cutting the clutter and expanding the tiny truths that get exposed. Finding those hidden pearls that capture something real and true and valuable — that is the rush and the reward of writing.
I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Once a friend asked me how it felt to be in the zone when writing. “You know, like when the prose just flows out and it’s so good. I bet that happens all the time, right?”
Her face fell when I gave her the disappointing news. I do feel in the zone at times, and the words pour out, but they are far from what anyone would call prose. In-the-zone writing is just step one for me. It’s during the dumpster dive that the real story (or anything close to prose) emerges.
The more I read from other writers, the more I understand that I’m in good company with this writing pattern. For example,
The first draft of anything is shit.
— Ernest Hemingway
That quote comes from the notes of Arnold Samuelson, an aspiring writer and Hemingway’s deckhand in 1934. Part of the deal was that Hemingway would mentor Samuelson in writing — I think that meant that Samuelson could pick his brain as they farted around on the boat. An ideal arrangement for both. Samuelson’s sister found and published his notes after he died in 1984, and the quote above comes from that book.
Author Daniel Pink finds himself in the same boat as Hemingway, at least when it comes to first drafts. Pink’s work is very different from Hemingway’s — he writes about business, creativity, and productivity. An interviewer once asked him what he does when writing doesn’t come easy.
For me, the writing never comes easy. Never. When it’s especially difficult, sometimes I’ll take a walk. But most times, I’ll just sit there, suffer, write shitty sentences, and hope I can make the next draft less putrid. — Daniel Pink
Shitty seems to be the theme when my writing heroes talk about their first drafts. Anne Lamott, author of my favorite writing-about-writing book Bird by Bird, encourages writers like me to let that first go at a piece just be awful.
“Get it all down. Let it pour out of you and onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can.” — Anne Lamott
So here’s to dumpster diving into my trash pile of words. It’s grimy and embarrassing and sometimes bruising. I’ve learned that if I don’t let my writing spew out in its most raw, trashy form then I’ll never move forward. Instead, I’ll just keep revising that introduction til it’s so tidy and wrapped up tight that it’s got no personality left at all. I’ll never get to the good stuff that matters.
I’d love to hear how your first drafts are going. Are you filling the dumpster? Diving in? Or maybe you have a different view of first drafts?
Let me know what you think.
A few more of my stories about writing…
