Shitty First Drafts

             Whenever writing a paper, writing a first draft is paramount. Many writers will write their paper, do slight editing and be done. But when you write in drafts you are able to edit and rewrite drafts until you have an ultimate. Anne Lamott Introduces this as the idea of shitty first drafts. That even the best writers write shitty first drafts to begin the writing process.
            Every writer can learn from writing more and more shitty first drafts, be it a short story, an essay or a blog post.
            Lamott reminds the writer of the pressure that you feel when sitting down to start writing. It can be daunting to think of the 20 pages you need to begin-but if you take out the pressure that it needs to be good, you can just write and let it flow, it may be shitty, but its only the first draft.

To you, the writer From, Mark Twain

Any writer is constantly trying to improve their "skill with the quill" as it were. There is no place better to gain writing knowledge than from the great writers themselves. Mark twain is not stranger to composition and his Essay, "The Art of Composition" can teach one how to sharpen their skills to be as effortlessly eloquent as Twain.

Mark Twain stresses the “unconscious powers of mind” that begin working when one begins writing. Mark twain writes “leisurely” and it flows naturally from within him. He can't pin down his methods in his mind when he starts writing. He knows they are there but they are not neatly organized and compartmentalized. Still what seems like chaos in the mind leads to an ease of style when writing.

Twain has come up with the idea of the “model chamber” sort of a stash of sentences we have in our mind compiled of every sentence we’ve read. The model chamber is what shapes one's instructional writing. The model chamber is made as we reject uncomfortable sentences, for whatever reason we might find them offensive, and as we accept ones we do like. Twain explains that this process of selection or rejection is done through an other unconscious marvel of the mind; the idea of the“Automatically working taste”. We don't need to consciously say “I like this sentences I’ll put it in my model chamber or I don't like this one-I’ll forget about it”, our mind automatically rejects or accepts them into the model chamber.

What a writer needs to know writing improves and is shaped by all of one's exposure to composition. The more you read and the more you practice writing the better your instinctual writing will be. Our conscious only comes in when editing. In this, reading is ESSENTIAL to being a good writer.

• Twain, Mark, "The Art of Composition"  Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Prose Models 11th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, 1975. 

If one was to compare and contrast the ideas presented by Alan Dershowitz in “The case for Medicalizing Heroin” and those in Charles Rangel’s “Legalize Drugs? Not On Your Life”, it would be easy to mistake these for a debate from today. These arguments, despite being written in the 1980’s are still valid in today’s society. It is a daily question of our government of legalizing and medicalizing drugs such as marijuana and also decriminalizing or legalizing harder drugs like heroin or crack-cocaine. The opposing view points of these two men are offered to the reader in a variety of appeals.  Dershowitz offers a logical argument for legalizing drugs. Supported both by fact and opinion. He offers to the reader the benefits of not only the society and economy but the addicts themselves. There would be less victims of drug abuse, and less victims of the unintentional side i.e. those who are infected with HIV/AIDS. He uses the argument that is most commonly used today of comparing drugs to alcohol and tobacco. That alcohol has proven to be as dangerous if not more than drugs and we’ve legalized those. We have also seen what happens when we outlaw them.  Rangel is against the legalization of drugs, his argument is presented by questions posed to the reader to prove the adverse or catastrophic consequences that would come of legalizing drugs. He takes us through all of the ramifications of legalization and swiftly rebutted the arguments for it.

These two men use logical and ethical appeals to argue their opposing views of drug legalization. Both could be looked at today almost 30 years later and apply their ideas to today’s society.

• Dershowitz. Alan, "The Case for Medicalizing Heroin" from Contrary to Popular Opinion. 1992. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Prose Models 11th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, 1975. 
• Rangel Charles. "Legalize Drugs? Not on Your Life" from The New York Times. 1988. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Prose Models 11th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, 1975.