The Wisdom of the Shitty First Draft
One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was during my first semester of Honours at university. For 12 months we were required to focus all our energy on just one topic. Though our supervisors could support and advise us, we were each individually responsible to do the work. Most of us had no idea where to begin.
In our first week, we were assigned to read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a kind of instructional for writers. Rooted in the book is the notion that we must tackle our projects one step at a time. Perfectionism, Lamott argued, is the voice of the oppressor. Lamott perfectly conveyed this in her wisdom of the “Shitty First Draft.” It’s the requirement to get word on paper, in all its messy, convoluted, shitty glory. A shitty first draft is just for you, a throwing up of ideas on the page. A shitty first draft is the ingredients for a cake flung on the counter. Stepping back, and seeing what we have to work with, the method of the editing process allows us to refine, cut back, add into, and create something beautiful. The shitty first draft is a purging, and the joy of writing comes from sculpting it. This lesson has stuck with me since I learnt it four years ago, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been neglecting Lamott’s advice since the start of 2025.
Word and Image, this blog, was something I began a couple of years ago around the same time I was completing my thesis. The subject of my research, Michael (Corinne) West, was just as much a writer as she were a painter. I was captivated by her Notes on Art, journal entries on her philosophy of modern painting, poetry of existential anguish, daily musings. It felt weirdly voyeuristic, spending time with this unknown lady, who became more and more known to me and yet more and more an enigma the further I delved into her writings. I would find myself struck by the randomness of her notation, a colon here, an en dash there. Were they clues? Were they evidence of her treatise on art? Most likely, they were mere stylistic quirks reminiscent of a writer who was thinking as they wrote. West wasn’t writing for a reader - she barely exhibited during her lifetime and she died in poverty in her little Manhattan apartment. Notes on Art was a cauldron for shitty first drafts and poetic masterpieces alike.
So while I began Word and Image hoping it would function a little like West’s Notes on Art, I’ve recently felt the familiar anxiety of perfectionism return. Perhaps this is due to where I am in my practice; the last few months of finalising and delivering an exhibition required a role of refining, resolving, perfecting. However, writing, at least for me, is inherently about process. Writing is a tool to figure ideas out, you start with the shitty first draft, and then you go mining through the ramble for a golden nugget of an idea. I know it is time for me to return to that beautiful, sponge-like state, where I can drink up inspiration and wait for the muse to arrive, but I must admit I have resisted the vulnerability of this state after the high I felt when Flight of the Battery Hens concluded.
The success of the exhibition has resulted in a strange pressure, no doubt self-inflicted, to immediately achieve something just as great. I call it strange because I know it’s not entirely logical and yet it does feel necessary to continuously put out ambitious and groundbreaking work to stay relevant in an increasingly distracted world. It’s a type of world inherently at odds with the sacredness of the shitty first draft, and yet the shitty first draft, both in writing and in painting, is so essential to the creative purpose. Amidst the swirl of questions coming from people asking me “what’s next?” I feel I owe it to them to respond with something great, something bigger, more exciting, more worthy than the exhibition I dedicated well over 12 months to. Exhibiting made me acutely aware of my audience, a blessing on one hand, and a terrifying reminder that myself and my work are being perceived.
What’s more, and it must be addressed, is that ChatGPT has no doubt interrupted the creative process. A fantastic tool in many respects – organising my calendar, simplifying emails, summarising texts – it also offers the tragically brilliant option of taking a shitty first draft, and instantly turning it into resolved piece of writing. But this is favourite part of writing. Sitting with my writing, massaging it, choosing what to keep and what to take out, is agonising, excruciating work, and I love the suffering of it. My ego does not, and is oh so tempted to ask ChatGPT for some help. I don’t wish to open that can of worms for myself, but the fact I know pandora’s box is there, three clicks away in another tab of my laptop, has been enough to make me pause, and almost wish to not write at all.
So, I must return to the wisdom of Anne Lamott and Michael West, two women who knew the sacredness of writing as I know the sacredness of paint. I don’t think AI, nor the relentless pressures of social media, the art market and an audience, would allow their creative process to be diluted. These are fierce, committed women. And today, I too am committed - to giving myself the grace to be imperfect, to surrender to the creative process and be patient with myself while the next body of work slowly unfurls, first as a few fleeting seeds, eventually as entire lifeforms.
Michael West in her 5th Avenue Apartment, 1950s. Courtsey of Hollis Taggart, Michael West Estate Archives.