I felt that I really connected with Anne Lamott’s short essay “Shitty First Drafts.” I felt like Lamott’s approach to writing is very similar to mine. I often dread writing a paper, especially a creative paper, I would prefer to answer prompt that can be backed up with scientific evidence. It was nice to hear that even the most accomplished writer also sometimes dread the writing process. I really liked Lamott’s idea of just writing a shitty first draft, a draft that no one will ever see and is just for you to get your words down on paper. I feel like going forward it would be beneficial to myself if I were to just let myself write a shitty first draft. I tend to be very organized and feel stuck when it comes to writing however I feel that by taking this approach it would better my writing significantly. 

Strategy:

Your goal (or goals), articulated in your own words

• Making my thesis more narrow by adding in some specific details or points
• I need to work on adding in some transitional sentences to make my paper flow a bit better
• Strengthening some of my supporting points to better support my thesis
• Small grammatical errors

The steps you plan to take to achieve this goal (in order of priority)

• Reread my paper / look at my peer reviews
• Narrow down the exact point I want to prove and incorporate them into my thesis statement
• Go back to my references and look for stronger supporting sentences or ideas
• Read my paper a loud to myself
• Have a peer check for local errors

What you see as your biggest challenge

• I can see one of my biggest challenges when it comes to revising and strengthening my paper being time. I feel that this week I have a lot on my plate with school and giving my paper the time it needs to make it great may be a bit of a challenge with the due date fast approaching.

And what will you do if a challenge comes up that proves too difficult for you to solve on your own? In other words, what resources do you plan to use?

•  I feel like I have a lot of resources available to me, it is just up to me to make the time to receive the help. I can speak with Professor Emerson, Emmy Jones, reach out to SASC tutors, as well as my peers.