Crappy First Drafts
Crappy first drafts. Anne Lamott phrases it slightly more colorfully, but that's the gist. Can't write? Don't wait for the Almighty to hand you a perfectly formed manuscript from the sky. Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and just write. Will what you write fall somewhere beneath the quality of a poop emoji? Often yes. But you're trying and that is a heck of a lot better than not.
And maybe, just maybe in that crappy first draft is the seed for a slightly better second draft. Maybe that buds into a not terrible third draft and—if you cultivate, water, and care for the words—maybe it blooms into something beautiful. Maybe. But you have to start writing before any of that is remotely possible.
Can you tell you have landed in the middle of a pep talk to myself? I've been in a period of rolling writer's block for the last several months. Don't worry. I'm going to expand this concept for a general audience. Apologies to Anne Lamott because I can't remember how closely I'm hewing to what she wrote and Bird by Bird is in storage. Just assume everything that I write, she has written far better.
The principle of crappy first drafts applies to anything in life. Each day is a daunting blank page. We want to write different things: a life of faith, the pursuit of love, the quest for a more just world, or maybe just not screwing up as much. But the words, sentence, and paragraphs that make up those ventures can seem impossible to write at times. Thus we often just don't try. Some days we just run out the clock waiting for God to hand us an easy three-step process from the sky. But all the things you want to write in your life will not happen if you don't put proverbial pen to paper.
You and I have to do something about this. We have to just hold our nose and jump in. Write a crappy first draft. Shove the question of "What if it's terrible?" out of your mind. Maniacally laugh at it like a cheesy 90s action flick villain. It probably will be terrible. We're just starting! Actually it might be "meh," which is worse than terrible in a culture that glorifies dumpster fires nearly as much as excellence. Don't worry about that.
But try. It's Lent. This is the season of grace and crappy first drafts. Our fast may have failed yesterday or we may have skipped a devotional. Today is a new day. Try. Take the first step. Write a crappy first draft. Take on a spiritual discipline. Risk vulnerability. Call a congressperson. Help someone in need. Try to get through the day. You'll trip and fall. But try.
Practice doesn't make perfect. That's nigh impossible, but practice can make something worthwhile or, at the very least, a little less crappy. And in this world, that transformation is practically a miracle.
I believe that most of us experience an internal tug-of-war between the past and the future. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ titular demon supervisor advises his underling Wormwood that one of best ways to keep a human from doing good is to keep them ping-ponging between those two times that are not the present. One keeps trying to recapture or reach towards moments that are mist. It can keep a person from doing something.
The quote above resonates with me because it harnesses the past and unfinished future into a catalyst that animates our present. We remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because it means something today and compels us to presently work for the Good that is already here, but also not yet. We remember the hope and pain of the past to do something that help us take some sort of step each and every day. We realize that the hope which exists within the gospel story is not yet fully realized. Many people are still being left behind and forgotten. The realization, as the theologian Metz states, puts pressure and questions on the present.