How to use bad writing to write more

Plus bears, bighorn sheep, and gratuitous poop emojis.

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here. 

Early in my graduate student days, I got lucky. Really, really lucky.

It was the mid-90s, and I was in Borders bookstore, probably wearing something that is currently quite trendy.

An aspiring fiction writer at the time, I beelined to the writing section and hit gold: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. 

Bird by Bird changed my writing practice forever. Lamott taught me to break the act of writing down into tiny pieces. To write despite that voice in my head telling me all the reasons not to write right now. To accept feeling jealous of other writers.

Most critically, she taught me the importance of shitty writing. 

Since I was a child, I wanted to be a writer. A good writer. But as a grad student with unstructured time and an intimidating to-do list (sole item: “write dissertation”), I found writing hard. I’d spend my days staring at my computer screen, typing a sentence and then deleting it. Rewriting it. Deleting that sentence as well. A single paragraph could take a day. And it might be deleted the day after that.

Perfectionism and writing productivity do not go together.

Bird by Bird was a revelation. 

Lamont wrote my belief that good writers just sit down and write good work “is just the fantasy of the uninitiated.” Instead, she argues for “shitty first drafts”: “All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” 

In a leap of faith, I chose to believe her assertion that my writing could be complete shit at first and things would end up okay.

I gave it a try and discovered that I am excellent at shitty writing. My first drafts were truly terrible! The ideas were jumbled. The arguments were circular. Some sentences went on forever. Some paragraphs did the same. And the semi-colons… oh, the semi-colons…

But I soon had a chapter draft, a starting point, which was more than I had before. And it turns out that while my initial writing was terrible, my revising skills were pretty good.

Most importantly, I discovered writing in drafts (shitty → a bit less shitty → only slightly shitty…) was much, much faster than trying to write something acceptable from the start.

I was hooked. I started aiming for even worse writing. I’d just type away and let all of the random ideas work themselves out on the page. I would get halfway through a sentence, have no idea what I was talking about, and leave it there to be picked up later. And somehow things would always come together into a terrible draft, and then a less-terrible draft, and then eventually a version I could show someone.

Learning the skill - and it is a skill - of shitty first drafts has made a huge difference in my career. For decades it has helped me deal with issues of procrastination. It has given me the courage to start writing projects that scared me. It has allowed me to keep research active(ish) while taking on academic leadership roles. 

If you want to write more efficiently and increase your writing productivity, I encourage you to give shitty writing a try. Today’s small thing to try immediately makes this easy for you.

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Write a Shitty First Draft

Learning to write shitty first drafts is so easy that you can do it in three steps. You can do three steps! Here we go.

💩 1. Adopt the shitty first draft mindset. In Ann Patchett’s novel, The Dutch House, a professor tells the narrator “Chapter 1 provides the keys to chapter 2, and chapters 1 and 2 together provide the keys to chapter 3. We’re on chapter 4 now. It isn’t possible to suddenly start working hard on chapter 4 and catch up to the rest of the class. You have no keys.” 

This analogy works for the shitty first draft mindset. Tell yourself - and truly believe - that  a shitty first draft is the key to unlocking a less shitty second draft, which is then the key to a solid final draft.

How many drafts will you need to write in total? It varies. Sometimes it is two. Sometimes three. Sometimes more. When I am working on a shitty first draft, the number of subsequent drafts is not my concern. That is a Future Me problem. She can handle it.

Present Me just needs to get that shitty first draft done.

💩 2. Write fast by using placeholders, bullets, outlines, and whatever else helps. As I am writing this point, there is a section above that reads “Insert text here.” I don’t know what I am going to write for that spot yet. I could stop and think about it, but that would slow me down. I trust that later I will get to it. I always do. So I am writing this part right now.

Your goal is to get a shitty first draft done as quickly as possible so that you can move on to the less-shitty second draft. The trick to this, I have found, is to get an easy part done. Then move to another easy part and get that done. Jump around from easy part to easy part. Break hard parts into smaller units, pick the easiest of those smaller units, and write that part. Put “add citation here” to the text rather than stopping to search up the source.

Just get it done.

💩 3. Embrace the shame. First draft writing is a creative process. Revising is a more technical process. Both are critical. And they each deserve their own dedicated, separate time in your writing process.

This means not editing while writing your shitty first draft.

Breaking the habit of editing while you are writing your shitty first draft can be challenging. You write a sentence and think, “that could be better.” And you are right! Of course it could be better. It is a shitty first draft. It is by definition shitty!

The secret is to really lean into the shittiness. Make it a goal to write a draft so shitty you keep it protected by a password in fear that someone will read it. Make it a goal to write a draft so shitty that you feel embarassed just thinking about it. 

Fixing your shitty writing is Future You’s problem. Trust that you can handle it.

Just get it done. Imperfectly, unattractively, shitily done.

That’s it - three simple steps to getting a shitty first draft done.

Now it is possible that your brain is coming up with many reasons why this won’t work for you. Here are some objections I have heard over the years, along with my responses:

• “My standards are too high for this.” No problem, just lower them for the first draft and then revise the second draft to meet your standards. 

• “I don’t have time for multiple drafts.” Are you sure? If your experience is like mine, multiple drafts are actually faster than writing perfectionism and procrastination. Consider experimenting to see how it works for you.

• “I work with other people and don’t want to show them shitty drafts.” Fair enough. Show them the second draft. Or the third. No one needs to see your shitty first draft.

• “But I write with my coauthors over Google Docs and they would see my shitty writing and judge me.” Easy fix: 1. Tell your authors about the shitty first drafts approach. 2. Don’t coauthor things with assholes.

• “What I am doing right now works for me.” Cool. Carry on, my friend.

Do you write shitty first drafts? Please let me know on Twitter (tag me at @loleen_berdahl), or hit the comment button and share it below. I would love to hear from you!

Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To

A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:

• My coauthors and I published something! If you are involved with graduate education, please check out our Canadian Journal of Political Science piece on doctoral mentorship practices. It is open access, but the tl;dr version is this: “supervisors are becoming more actively and directly involved in their students’ research careers in ways that increase their students’ career opportunities”. Please share with your colleagues involved in graduate programs.

• A podcast I have been particularly enjoying lately is On the Reg, hosted by Inger Mewburn (aka the “Thesis-Whisperer”) and Jason Downs. They provide helpful tips for productive academic work, make me laugh, and swear as much as I do. Be sure to give this pod a listen.

• Roadtrip! Our family visited two Canadian National Parks (Kootney and Jasper). In so doing, we soaked in the hot springs five times, went white water rafting, and saw gorgeous wildlife, including bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, deer, a black bear, a grizzly bear, squirrels, and many species of birds that I won’t try to name. There is so much beauty in the world and it was lovely to experience some of it.

Image: Athabasca Falls, Jasper National Park. Not the location of our white water rafting day!

Until next time…

As always, thank you for reading. I aspire for Academia Made Easier to be one of the items in your email inbox that you enjoy receiving. I know that your time is valuable and I appreciate you sharing it with me. 

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. Another helpful takeaway from Bird by Bird was the learning that someone other than me had a continuous negative voice in their head while they wrote. (Other people’s brains are also assholes? Who knew?) Lamott described hers as a radio station, KFKD (K-Fucked), that is always playing in the background. An apt description!

Want to help support my chocolate habit? You are very sweet. Buy me a coffee is a site that allows readers to show their appreciation for the unpaid labour of writers, artists, and other creatives. Check it out!

University leaders: I am currently booking virtual and in-person faculty success workshops and graduate student success workshops for the next academic year. To have me lead a workshop for your campus, please contact me!

Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the  Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of the University Affairs Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science. 

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