The Dreaded Writer's Block

Lamott says, in her "Shitty First Drafts," that the perceptions most people have of how writers work is different from the reality of the work itself. She refers to this in paragraph 1 as
“the fantasy of the uninitiated."

I think that many people, often those who don't write often, believe that writer's do possess some sort of supernatural ability to simply conjure up ground-breaking and concise ideas all the time. This however is not the case at all. I, as one who loves writing, often struggle with beginning and even get stuck part-way through...(this clip illustrates struggles with "writer's block") as Lammott says, "very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it ." I think that this is something that I can very much relate to. My writing style tends to be simply running with an idea that pops into my head. Once I have an idea that I am set on writing about I will simply write and write without any sort of organization. The goal is simply for me to get the ideas onto the paper before they slip back into the deep, dark recesses of my mind never to be seen again. If I concentrate too hard on working with my ideas and with any sort of strict organization I lose the creativity and enthusiasm that drives any quality writing I produce.

For me, writing is a type of freedom. Due to the fact that I see writing as freedom it doesn't make sense to put this freedom behind the oppressive bars of formal organization (at least at the beginning). When I do this to my writing, it ceases to be a work of love, it turns into a painstaking process of forcing myself to think of ideas that work within the confines of this set structure. If the situation occurs in the reverse, the writing is saved. Once my ideas are out, all the details and a vast quantity of possible directions it might take, I can then shape it to fit the requirments. Like a sculpter shaping a slab of marble into a masterpiece I am able to work with the mass of ideas and shape it into the appropriate form. If for example a sculpter were forced to make a statue from a very limmited quantity of material he would have to add to his piece and his work would be that much harder.

A "shitty first draft" is a writers defense against blocks, and allows the writer much freedom to simply express any ideas and emotions without any concern for grammar, structure, or anything else. Once this hard part is over the process of shaping this rough draft into a finished piece begins. That is the real writing process...