The Sacred First Draft
And why I no longer try to protect it.
Don’t ask me when it happened, but I think I’ve grown up as a writer.
Now, bear in mind, I had some early feedback after publishing my first book that I wasn’t humble enough because I was calling myself an ‘author’ (true story).
But I genuinely am speaking with the utmost humility when I say I feel like I’ve evolved since that beginning where I was all over the place and felt my first drafts were this sacred channel which was as close to the Divine as possible.
At that naive time, I also thought that the editing process was there to change that sacred first draft to make it permissible to be seen in society, and on some level, I tried to avoid it.
But now I live for the editing process too.
And the first drafts finally live up to their name - that they are just the beginning of putting pen to paper, or typing it out.
The word ‘draft’ itself has an interesting etymology and at its root, falls on the idea of ‘pull’, ‘draw’ or ‘drag’.
One can understand that the first draft also ends up being created after an idea that doesn’t appear on a page but more in the mind.
This root evolved into English in around the 14th to the 16th Centuries where the word ‘draft’ meant ‘a rough sketch’ or ‘an outline’.
Again, this gives an idea of pulling together concepts that may not have been written down previously.
As a writer, one can understand this well.
When you’re not typing out words to create sentences, you’re thinking.
You’re strategising how to handle arriving at the page.
Those of us who have written books or articles have suffered from that block that Steven Pressfield says doesn’t exist, and we know how difficult that moment actually is.
The concept of the ‘first draft’ isn’t just a modern concept.
Writers have revised their work for as long as writing has existed.
Authors like Cicero and Virgil would compose, revise and polish their writing extensively.
However, the first explicit framing of writing which included a ‘first draft’ was more visible from the 19th Century with the rise of print culture, increased literacy and the professionalisation of authorship.
And it is on this foundation that gave me that first step in my writing practice too.
When I started writing, I was very possessive about a few things.
First, that the noise of other writers shouldn’t step on my toes, and the other was that any editing should keep the original draft intact as much as possible.
If it didn’t, it felt my voice was being diluted from its purity.
It was a relatively new voice.
Brand new.
Something like when a child is in their infancy and we lovingly assume any prayer that is uttered by the little one is heard by God because they have a direct line.
My writing was a small infant with a divine connection.
Why would anyone want to edit that?
Why would anyone want my voice to be lost when I had finally found it?
It took me to undetake a lot of writing, a lot of shifting of my thinking, and with others getting involved with feedback that I have now realised (and accepted) just how important the editing process is.
In my creative circles, I’ve heard a lot about ‘messy first drafts’ and initially I felt the word ‘messy’ was the wrong word to associate with something so sacred.
When I read some of what Anne Lamott said in ‘Bird by Bird’, I saw she also had this feeling around first drafts being like children:
‘You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him.’
But she has also called first drafts ‘shitty’.
She went on to explain that ‘Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts’.
Ernest Hemingway apparently echoed this sentiment by saying ‘the first draft of anything is shit’.
Terry Pratchett was a little more subtle with how he described that first effort:
‘A first draft is just you telling yourself the story’.
And I now do agree with all of them.
Children are sacred, but they also have to learn how to handle the society they are born into.
That takes effort to teach them how to speak, walk, eat, and be around others.
Writing anything seems to follow a similar journey and evolution.
Origin stories, just like the words I discuss weekly, are great, but they are actually just noting starting points too.
We also follow the journeys they take beyond borders and empires, and only then do we understand how we end up with the words in our vocabulary so many miles away from their origin.
Writing, as a whole, mirrors this.
Where I placed a lot of energy on my first drafts, I now see them as part of an even bigger picture; one where there are other equal measures all my words have to go through before I press publish.
Even after the publication of anything I write there is a legacy concept to undertake too.
It is safe to say I have grown up.
I can be around other personal essays written by the likes of Joan Didion and really understand them without feeling like my voice is being diluted.
I have grown up because now I feel comfortable with my first drafts just being first drafts.
Those messy, shitty things that allow me to tell myself the story of whatever I want to write about, before they grow up and enter the society they will need to live in.
It is a process; a practice.
And one with many parts, not just the first.