Good Writing Day
August 3, 2008 by Randy
Filed under Christianity, Current Affairs, Life, Writing, art
The above video is an interview with writer Anne Lamott. I got this tip (thanks Fay) right after I sent off the rough drafts for three articles and was all jazzed about them.
Then Anne just put it all in perspective. I can see my rough drafts probably should have gone through another draft before sending them off :-/ … we shall see.
But overall I am very energized. I spent five hours writing today and LOVED it.
Anne had a lot to say … a LOT to say. About writing, what I found very instructive and stood out to me was her “three drafts” method of writing.
First draft is the “down draft” and basically that is spewing it out. Just getting it all out and into the document. It means nothing, it’s horrible, no real structure but you get the credit of getting it out.
The second draft is the “up draft.” This is when you go back through and start editing away. A good third of it will be cut out. You also start to see holes in content and ideas that are missing which need to be added.
Then the third draft is the “Dental Draft” where you take each part and like a set of teeth go from tooth to tooth to fill, fix, clean, set, maybe even pull … but each tooth is made stronger so that the whole set works and functions well together.
I thought that was very helpful. She was talking about a book of course but it made me think that my three drafts today were somewhere between the down and up drafts. I might be wrong because I think (bias in full effect of course) they were very strong but I really appreciate this advice and will be using it to guide a massive project (to me at least) starting on 8/11. I hope to have a “down draft” of a book done by 9/8.
No, I don’t have a book deal and I have no idea if it would ever be read by another soul. Yet, I know I have got to get this book out of me. I wanted to write humor, and then fiction, and then humorous fiction … and then humorous non-fiction but I believe, strongly, that the Lord said He won’t let me write about that other stuff. In fact He may have even been frustrating my efforts to do so until I write this first book.
And … I don’t want to talk about the subject publicly yet either. Personally? … sure but not blog about it except in generalities. Is that weird?
I believe the Lord actually told me to write it a couple of years ago but I have run away from doing so. It’s very personal. Of course the sovereignty of God is a mystery and more can be added to the book as a result now.
This summer has been inundated with affirmation to get this done. He has even made a way for my schedule to accommodate the effort.
So exciting.
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