Shitty First Drafts, etc.

The hefty reading assignments this weekend all seem to emphasize the same thing, which is simply: Your early is going to suck. I know this sounds so crass, but there is no other way to put it. In Paul Roberts', "How To Say Nothing In 500 Words," he explains the fatal errors of freshmen writing. One of the best lines I think in the entire article is in the portion that discusses the idea of taking the less usual side in an argument. He says, "And if the subject assigned is "My Pet Peeve," do not begin, "My pet peeve is the English instructor who assigns papers on 'my pet peeve."' This was still funny during the War of 1812, but it has sort of lost its edge since then. It is in general good manners to avoid personalities." That just struck me as funny and also true. However, I feel that most college freshmen (myself included) fall into the stereotypes described in Roberts' article, because of the instruction we receive in high school. High school writing does not really allow for creativity. Also, my teachers always had some kind of requirement of, "use vivid words," or "long, descriptive sentences," and for most high school students that involves the thesaurus and a whole lot of crappy writing. Lamott's articles seem to emphasize sort of the same idea. She basically talks about how absolutely every one's first draft will be terrible, and that there is no way to change that, even experience doesn't help. Finally, "Freewriting," seems to encourage these crappy first drafts. Elbow talks about how if you don't know what to write, simply write that. It basically gets the mind moving, and in the long run, improves your writing.