First drafts are my enemy. I hate them more than I hate mushrooms. I hate them more than I hate math class in the morning. I hate them more than failing when I've studied for hours. I go into writing with confidence and excitement but first drafts take my dreams and crumble them down into nothing.
Writing has been a passion of mine since I was little. I would write books, short stories, poems, reviews, and I wouldn't stop until I was forced to. I had a goal of being one of the youngest published author, and when my uncle had a book published I thought that I might have an in; however, a couple things began to get in the way of my writing. When I was in 10th grade, my teacher made me cringe at the thought of writing . Being forced to write was one of the worse things I ever had to do. Writing is for people who want to give someone a message and deliver it strongly and passionately, not for pointless prompts that counts as busy work until the teacher is done eating lunch. Something I had once loved was not something that made my sigh when I walked into class. I thought that I would never get my spark back.
Later in high school, I began to write more and more, and it became less of a forced assignment and more of an enjoyable hobby as it used to be. I started writing down anything that came to mind again and to this day I still try and write as such as I can just like I used to. Although I definitely don't write as freely as when I was younger, I am proud that I came back to it. Writing is a way to leave the sometimes horrible realistic world and jump into a world that no one but you knows exists. Senior year I began focusing more on my essays and trying to learn how to control them, because once I find what I want to write about, I find my passion in it and it shows through my writing; however, I can sometimes write way too many words and find no way back. I'll be lost at an intro and be too broad the rest of the time. My writing, although good, was all over the place. It became very stressful, but the one thing that bothered me the most was first drafts.
I would take so much time trying to figure out what to write and how to move a jumble of words from my head to my paper, and eventually I would figure it out and be proud of my writing, but then I would be reminded that it was the first draft. This would then mean that I had to change it. That to me is so stressful because I had worked so hard on something and taken so long detailing it just to have to change it. And how would I even know what to change?
First drafts stress me out, make me ask more questions than I can count, and make me second guess my writing. I know that if I want to strengthen my writing, I need to learn how stress less on the first draft as well as separate my writing into a draft that I can find ways to make better and eventually be just as proud, or even prouder, of my final draft. Reading this text actually made me see my flaws in how I write and made me feel better about not being too happy with what I write at first because no author just sits down and writes perfection.I need to accept that first drafts should be shitty. They can't be perfect. This is my problem. Also I need to cool in on the word count, this is already too long.