Rhetorical Analysis Essay

“Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, is a hilarious must read for junior high school students and any other aspiring writers. Her essay inspires comfort and confidence in writing a first draft. It concretes that all writers experience the “shitty” first draft. Anne Lamott wrote this instructional information in 1995, but it is timeless information. She blows the idea of writing an immaculate first draft out of the water. Anne supports the idea that bad first drafts will almost always lead to better second, third and final drafts. She symbolizes the first draft to be like a child. Where you put all your thoughts and emotions out there in words on paper, you go all over the place, you say all kinds of ridiculous things, and all with the intention of coming back as a more rational adult, (the only one to read this draft), to fix your child-like writing into a more complete and coherent written masterpiece. Beginning writers, (and any other writers), will get a better understanding on starting the writing process with a bad first draft and that it can lead to an amazing final written draft.
Anne discusses her history as a writer. How she at one time wrote the food critic column for a magazine that no longer runs, which she makes it clear how she had nothing to do with the downfall, an interesting tidbit to her story. As the writer of the restaurant review column, Anne describes the problems she faces when writing her first drafts. When meeting with her friends at the restaurants, Anne would write down items that she found to be pertinent to writing her article. Taking notes this way, I believe made Anne a more successful writer. She would use her notes, written and mental, to develop her first draft.
Anne recant memories as a developing writer and does so with humor discussing the lessons she learned and the processes with which she learned these lessons. She uses her humor to show that all writers write shitty first drafts. She writes very informally, as though she