Your First Draft Is Supposed to Be Bad. Congratulations!

Letting Go of Perfection So the Real Work Can Begin

There’s a moment in every writing process, usually right after the initial excitement fades, when we look around and realize: we don’t know what we’re doing. We might have a loose outline, a question to pursue, a folder of scattered notes. Maybe an idea we care about, or a stack of pages lined with scribbled margins and unfinished thoughts. But the shape of the thing? The direction? The point? Still unclear. This is the moment when doubt creeps in, when it’s tempting to abandon the mess in favour of something that looks more finished, more certain. Something that sounds like it already knows what it’s trying to say. But if we’re lucky, and willing to sit with the discomfort, we keep going until the contours begin to show.

One of the best guides I’ve ever read on writing through the mess is Draft No. 4 by John McPhee. At the heart of that book is a simple but powerful observation: “The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once.” You get the words down, blurted, scattered, uncertain. Then you step away. You let the draft sit. On the walk home, or while washing dishes, or in the shower, your brain quietly gets to work. A clearer way to say something surfaces. A better metaphor drifts in. A connection you missed clicks into place.

Here’s the crucial point: that kind of work only happens once a messy first draft exists. Without it, there’s nothing to improve, nothing to rework. The act of writing is what activates the clarity. That insight, as simple as it sounds, reshaped how I think about drafting, not as a stage to rush through, but as writing itself. Not the prelude to the real work, but the real work in an early form.

You Are Not Your First Draft

We keep writing because something in us believes the mess means something. That beneath the fragments, the tangents, the discarded drafts, there’s a shape worth finding. Whether it’s an academic article, a book, an op-ed, or some other form of writing, too often, we’re pressured to sound confident. To offer conclusions. To wrap things up neatly. The trouble is, writing like that takes time. It requires the discipline to resist our inner critic long enough for clarity to emerge. Too often, that patience runs out. And the writing stalls before it ever really begins.

Anne Lamott, in Bird by Bird, devotes an entire chapter to: “Shitty First Drafts.” Lamott’s point is simple, but radical: the mess isn’t a problem to be fixed, it’s a stage to be respected. She doesn’t romanticize the early mess. She normalizes it. All good writers write bad first drafts. Even professional ones. Even the people whose work we admire. The draft, she argues, isn’t the failure, it’s the process. It’s the beginning of a conversation, with the material, and with ourselves.

And yet, most of us resist this simple truth. We know first drafts are supposed to be rough, but we often take that roughness personally. We look at the clunky phrasing, the contradictions, the vague ideas, and instead of thinking, “This is raw material,” we think, “This is me. I must not be very good at this.” Let me put it plainly: you are not your first draft. The mess on the page is not a measure of your worth.

Why We Take It Personally

Our initial reaction is understandable. If we’re the kind of people who care about ideas, about clarity, coherence, then early chaos feels like a kind of failure. Not just of language, but of thinking. And since writing feels so personal, it’s easy to blur the line between the flaws in the text and flaws in ourselves. But first drafts aren’t personal worth in disguise. They’re not evidence of ability or lack thereof. They’re sketches. They’re trail-runs. Their job isn’t to be good, it’s to be useful.

This insight is why I named this newsletter Respect the Marble. Writing, for me, has always resembled sculpting: starting with something dense and formless, slowly chipping away until the structure begins to show. When a sculptor begins, the marble is cold, unshaped, and uninviting. There’s no guarantee of what it will become. The first few strikes might be off. The form might not emerge for weeks, for months. But the sculptor doesn’t mistake the unformed block for failure. They see it as part of the process, the necessary first step.

So too with writing. The first, chaotic draft is the block. It may be ugly. It may say things we don’t quite mean yet. But it gives us something to work with. It’s a place to start.

Focus on Effort, Not Ego

When we tie our identity to the polish of a first draft, we put ego where effort should be. And ego resists revision. Ego wants validation. It wants applause, and it wants it now. Effort, on the other hand, is humble. It returns to the page. It reworks a sentence ten times. It asks not “Is this good?” but “What is this becoming?” It understands that clarity isn’t a precondition for writing. It’s a product of the process. This is what knowing a first draft is bad gives us permission to do: lower the bar. Not forever. Just long enough to begin.

None of this is to romanticize the chaos. The essence of writing is editing as I have argued here. Writing still demands structure, clarity, deadlines. But those things come after the first draft. They don’t replace it. The first draft, including the circling, the fumbling, the uncertain exploration, isn’t wasted effort. It’s the work. It’s how we begin to see what we’re really trying to say. How we let the piece tell us what it wants to become. We’re not just typing. We’re shaping a relationship, with our words, our readers, our voice. And that takes time.

A Rough Guide for Bad First Drafts

If you find yourself staring an unruly first draft, unsure whether it’s salvageable, try this:

1. Rename the file: Call it Marble_v1, or Scrap, or Not Yet. Let’s signal to ourselves that this is a draft, not a finished argument.

2. Separate drafting from editing: Write in one mode, revise in another. Don’t try to be sculptor and critic at the same time. It stalls the work before it begins.

3. Time-bound the ugly: Let’s give ourselves 30 minutes to write badly. Set a timer. Suspend judgment until the bell rings.

4. Read it aloud as a reader, not a judge: Ask, “What is this trying to say?” Our job is to understand, not fix. Not yet.

5. Think of editing as alignment: We’re not rescuing a broken piece. We’re reworking it to better reflect what we meant all along.

The beauty of McPhee’s insight, and Lamott’s too, is that they name what many of us are too embarrassed to admit: our first draft will probably suck. And that’s exactly how it should be. Great writing isn’t a lightning bolt. It’s a slow, recursive practice. If you need something to pin above your desk, let it be this: “The only draft that defines me is the one I never write.” Form emerges through effort. So let’s stop obsessing over perfection and start celebrating our shitty first drafts.

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If this post resonated with you, or if you're chipping away at your own block of marble, I’d love to stay in touch. Respect the Marble is a space for anyone thinking seriously about how we write, why it matters, and how finding our voice is a craft. Each post is paired with a Skillpower Session: practical notes on writing with clarity, structure, and care. Not to spam, just the occasional spark: honest reflections, useful tips, and the odd insight worth chiseling out.

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