1. After reading an article, I assume that under “fantasy of uninitiated” author meant people’s imaginations, who do not have real experience in writing, regarding all struggles of this process. It is always hard to judge things that you have never experienced in your own life. After you see the completed work, you always imagine process is easier than it really is. Personally, I agree with author at this point. It is not just “pushing back sleeves and taking few deep breaths” (Lamott, 1994). It is also some sort of struggle and huge, emotionally hard work. Usually I try to complete first draft as some collection of ideas, some sort of extended plan concerning what I want to write about. Afterwards I proceed with my research and either deepen ideas mentioned or remove them. After I assume my own work almost done, I try to wait for few hours or even days to read it once more. This helps me to “forget” exact words that I wrote and evaluate this piece of writing not only in terms of grammar but also the whole idea.
2. Awful drafts help writer find course he would like to proceed on writing. Before starting writing author may have thousands ideas and choosing and putting them in correct order is an important part of the writing process. As mentioned in the video, good point is putting your ideas on separate piece of paper because while doing so, new ideas may appear ("The Writer's Guide: Revision", 2010). Revisions help writer understand whether what he wrote was good, interesting or even understandable. Sometimes writer may be involved in the process and he may have wonderful idea in his head, but when putting that on paper author may forget to mention something. Also some grammar issues and general concept should be checked before releasing piece of writing to audience.
3. Revising is an essential part of writing process. Every writer needs to have his work edited and revised in one way or another. First the whole idea of the paper should be checked, afterwards quality of evidences and so on. First, piece of writing should be reviewed globally and later you move to details. All this should be done in order to reach as perfect work as possible.
References:
Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life (1st ed., p. 21). New York: Pantheon Books.
The Writer's Guide: Revision. (2010). YouTube. Retrieved 11 March 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPFUzifp7s4
