I Let My First Draft Be Bad on Purpose | Bird by Bird

I rewrote the same opening line so many times that I memorized it and wrote almost nothing else. So for one scene in my novel, I did the opposite. I let the first draft be bad on purpose. Inspired by Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and what she famously calls "shitty first drafts" I tested what happens when you separate Creation from Evaluation. This is Episode 2 of my Personal Writing Curriculum, where I study one idea at a time and test it directly on my manuscript. 📚 Book in this episode: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott My 4 stage method for every lesson: Study → Dissect → Apply → Reflect ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: I share the 4 rules I used for my 30 minute drafting experiment, what actually happened when I stopped perfecting the first sentence, and the surprising thing it revealed about my characters. 🔗 Watch the curriculum in order: Personal Writing Curriculum Playlist: Episode 2    • I Let My First Draft Be Bad on Purpose | B...   New here? Start with Episode 1:    • I Built a Personal Writing Curriculum to B...   📑 CHAPTERS: 00:00 The Perfectionist's Trap 00:57 I Let My First Draft Be Bad on Purpose 01:00 My Personal Writing Curriculum (Series Intro) 01:57 Study: The Problem with Trying to Write Well (Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts") 03:51 Perfectionism vs. Intuition - Allowing Discovery 05:01 Dissect: What "Allow a Bad First Draft" Really Means (Creation vs. Evaluation) 05:42 Apply: The Experiment - My 4 Rules for Drafting 06:44 Writing Sequence - What Happened When I Kept Going 08:48 The Next Day Test - Revisiting the Messy Draft 10:25 Reflect: What Actually Changed - Access to Better Writing 12:18 The Rule I'm Keeping: Discover vs. Polish 12:50 Next Class - Tackling Overwhelm with "Bird by Bird" 💌 Collaborations & inquiries: writer.evalana@gmail.com ✍🏻 Follow my author journey: YouTube: @evalanawrites Instagram: @evalanawrites TikTok: @evalanawrites #writingcommunity #amwriting #firstdraft #birdbybird #annelamott #writingadvice #novelwriting #perfectionism #authorlife #personalwritingcurriculum ----------- Personal Writing Curriculum — Class Two | Anne Lamott Bird by Bird