Comparing and Contrasting

Although each writer has a different approach when it comes to writing, they all tie together in some ways very often. This is what seemed to happen in the three passages we were asked to read in this first week. This Included Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”, Lorrie Moore’s “How to Become a Writer, and Gail Godwin’s “The Watcher at the Gates.”  In each of these readings, each writer seemed to deal with what might seem a very odd conflict at first, but a very similar one between the three of them nonetheless. This conflict was change. What each writer had in common, was that in order to accomplish what they had to do, they had to go through a series of changes before they were able to get where they were trying to go. Anne Lamott showed how you must write everything down at first, even if it is crap, because by the end, that’s how masterpieces are made, through change. Godwin’s approach was a tad different, but still included change. He showed us how he must change his form of writing and when he writes so that his “Watcher at the Gates” was unaware and unable to stop his ideas from flowing smoothly. Moore’s change seemed to be a bit more drastic than the others. She described to us how change must go on throughout your entire life, and not just your writing. How you can change from being a child psychology major, to a writer from one day to the next. We are able to learn from these authors because they show that we must not be afraid of change. That in order to get to our goal of a perfect paper, we must encounter our shitty first drafts, or alter our lives a bit and try a new major, or maybe even make a picture of our “watcher” and turn it towards the wall. The authors’ approach to this change seemed to grow more and more unreal as we moved from story to story. Lamott’s view was the one that seemed quite realistic and what her as a writer most likely goes through. Moore’s view seemed to be very similar in a way to that of Lamotts, but to a much farther extent to where it seemed like there were very unnecessary forms of changes going on. Lastly, Godwin’s approach took an imaginative side to the issue and let us personify what really might be stopping us from writing drafts, a “watcher”. Whatever form we decide to take, it involves us trying something new and changing from the normal. Change. It’s what makes good writers great and lets us work on the abilities we already have and make them better.