First Drafts of Stone

Writing a first draft is the process of creating a medium, like a sculptor selecting a stone slab for a statue.  We conjure our first drafts, our blocks of stone, from thoughts and ideas then cut from these our stories, essays, poems, or informative writings.  Understanding the nature of first drafts prevents us from struggling to conjure and carve at the same time, which can lead to abandoning our projects, even dreams.  Such an understanding can also reassure us when we risk torturing ourselves with self-doubt while trudging through seemingly endless revisions.  What we do is difficult, in part, because we must create our stones before we sculpt our statues.

We dream of days when every word put to paper (or screen) is just the way it should be and leads effortlessly to the next word until we have a beautiful first draft.  This fantasy, or even a tempered expectation first drafts should look good in some way, can lead to discouragement or outright defeat.  A stone sculptor chooses a piece of stone, pictures the figure within it, then chips and grinds away the outside to reveal the artist’s vision.  Writing is a similar process, but only after our stones, our drafts, stand in front of us: ugly, bulky, dirty, and heavy drafts.

Writing is a messy job.  Downright dirty and unwieldy.  No one should ever see a first draft, the big ugly stone, other than its writer.  The first draft is meant only for its creator to gaze into searching for the sculpture waiting to be revealed: an essay theme, a poetic allusion, a thesis statement, or a conflict for a hero or heroine to overcome.  Once we create the rough draft and find the potential hidden deep within it, the carving begins, the paring away of sentences and words to bring to the surface the beauty buried within the ugliness.  All of this is done before the process of ongoing revision and rewriting— the polishing.

Enduring writers labor to create big ugly drafts (the mediums), accept the ugliness as an important part of the process, search for the beauty within the drafts, and labor to reveal the beauty.  Too many of us abandon a piece, or writing itself, because of the ugliness of our first drafts, but, if we understand how creating a first draft is a process of creating a medium, we can persist to craft from our mediums the kind of art we are proud to share with others.