How To Write a Surrendered (not shitty) First Draft
That book you just put down last night.
The blog post you read on the train.
The online course you finally finished.
All those words have one thing in common.
They started as a SURRENDERED first draft (SFD).
Ann Lamott coined the phrase “Shitty First Draft,” which I embraced for years. After a while, though, the “shitty” part didn’t feel good. I reframed this as surrendered.
Pretty much everything you’ve ever seen written started as an SFD.
The idea of the SFD is intended to get people comfortable with writing crap (note, I didn’t say publishing crap.) If your writing flows from your fingertips perfectly, error-free, with no pesky dangling modifiers or other grammar offenses, then you might not be human. But really, if this is you, I’d love to know — maybe you can teach me your ways.
Most writers, myself included, are intimately familiar with the SFD. This blog post was an SFD. I wrote the first draft in 20 minutes while listening to this song on a sunny afternoon while watching the chicken’s free-range around the backyard.
7 things you need to know to master the SFD:
1. Turn your brain off and tune into your body.
The SFD isn’t for overthinking. Ignore all those red squiggly lines alerting you to typos. To ignore these, I like to blur my eyes, look out the window while I’m typing, and constantly scroll down so I can’t see what I wrote. It can be tempting to go back and start fixing — don’t! Write as if you don’t have a backspace button.
2. Get it out as quickly as possible.
This is the point. Just write. You’ll go back and edit later. The stuff you don’t edit is the stuff of journals. Setting a timer for 25 minutes can help you focus.
3. You're going to edit.
When you revisit your SFD, ideally after you’ve stepped away for either a few minutes, a day, or even a year, you’ll have fresh eyeballs and be ready to edit.
4. It's supposed to be a draft.
When you revisit your SFD, read it with fresh, non-judging eyes. Stay open. Ask yourself what the draft needs. Sometimes, SFDs sit in my draft folders for months. Some never see the light of day, anyone’s inbox, or the pages of my books. And that’s okay. That’s the whole point. The SFD is for downloading information from your brain onto the page.
5. Write when you feel like it.
When I get a stroke of inspiration, I’ll write a fast and furious SFD and revisit it later. Sometimes, “later” means in a few months. When it comes time for me to publish a new blog post or start a big book project, I’ll review all my surrendered first drafts and see what inspiration I can draw from there. Talk to any writer, and they'll tell you the gold is in the editing and refining.
6. It's going to morph.
Sometimes, an SFD turns into something entirely different than I had planned. Sometimes, it ends up as a PDF download or even a workshop or course. It could live forever as a draft.
7. It wants to come out.
The SFD wants to get out of your head and onto the page. Let it out.
If I go on, this post would be way longer than necessary. All you need to know is to sit down, quiet the inner critic, and let the words fall out.
Need to edit your SFD? Here are my favorite ways to edit my work.
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