First drafts need permission

(“Tastes like pencil shavings and heartbreak,” wrote one reviewer.) Jeppson’s embraces its awful taste with print ads headlined, “When you need to unfriend someone in person.” Allow Yourself to Come Up With Terrible Ideas In Bird by Bird, her book on the art of writing fiction, Anne Lamott says: The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really crappy first drafts. That first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her.