Source: Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird (1994), Ch. "Shitty First Drafts"
Tags: Anne Lamott, writing process, inner critic, food review anecdote, revision in practice, perfectionism, writer's block, internal editor, mouse-in-jar exercise, self-doubt, writing anxiety
Lamott illustrates her drafting philosophy through a detailed account of writing restaurant reviews for California magazine. Even after years of professional experience, every review began with panic, dreadful sentences, and despair, followed by a bloated first draft, a careful second draft with a coloured pen, and a polished final version. She then addresses the inner voices (self-doubt, criticism, anxiety) that make first drafts so difficult, and shares a visualisation technique for quieting them.
The food review anecdote
Lamott's extended example of her own drafting process, drawn from writing restaurant reviews for California magazine. She uses it to show that even a professional writer with a regular deadline goes through panic, terrible first drafts, and heavy revision every single time.
Inner voices / inner critic
The chorus of self-critical, anxious, and judgmental thoughts that arise when a writer sits down to work. Lamott personifies these as distinct characters: the vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, the emaciated German critic, parents, and others. Quieting them is, she says, at least half the battle.
Vinegar-lipped Reader Lady
One of Lamott's personified inner critics. She reads your work primly and says, "Well, that's not very interesting, is it?" Represents the voice of dismissive judgement.
Mouse-in-jar exercise
A visualisation technique Lamott learned from a hypnotist. You imagine each inner voice as a mouse, pick it up by the tail, drop it into a mason jar, seal the lid, turn the volume up to hear the chatter, then turn it all the way down. Then you get back to writing.
Lamott wrote food reviews for California magazine before it folded. Each review took two days to write.
Day one: she would go to a restaurant several times with a few opinionated, articulate friends in tow. She would sit there writing down everything anyone said that was at all interesting or funny.
Day two (Monday): she would sit down at her desk with her notes and try to write the review.
Even after years of doing this, panic would set in.
She would try to write a lead, but instead produce a couple of dreadful sentences, cross them out, try again, and then feel despair and worry settle on her chest "like an x-ray apron."
She would think: "It's over. I'm not going to be able to get the magic to work this time. I'm ruined. I'm through. I'm toast."
She would consider getting her old job back as a clerk-typist.
Eventually she would stop, study her teeth in the mirror, make phone calls, eat, and procrastinate.
She would go back and sit at her desk, pick up her one-inch picture frame, stare into it, and every time the answer would come: all she had to do was write a really shitty first draft of, say, the opening paragraph. And no one was going to see it.
Then she would start writing without reining herself in, just typing, letting her fingers move.
The writing would be terrible.
She would write a lead paragraph that was an entire page, even though the whole review might only be three pages long.
She would write up descriptions of the food, one dish at a time, bird by bird.
Imaginary critics would sit on her shoulders commenting like cartoon characters, pretending to snore, rolling their eyes at her overwrought descriptions.
No matter how she tried to tone things down, a friend's words would echo: "Annie, it is just a bit of cake."
Because she had been writing for so long, she eventually learned to trust the process, sort of.
She would write a first draft that was self-indulgent, boring at the start, stupefying in its descriptions, full of quotes from black-humoured friends that made them "sound more like the Manson girls than food lovers," with no ending to speak of.
The whole thing would be long, incoherent, and hideous.
She would obsess about getting hit by a car, worry people would read what she had written and think it was a suicide note, and panic that her talent was gone.
The next day: she would sit down, go through it all with a coloured pen, take out everything she possibly could, find a new lead somewhere on the second page, figure out a kicky ending, and write a second draft.
It always turned out fine, sometimes even funny and weird and helpful.
She would go over it one more time and mail it in.
A month later, when the next review was due, the whole process would start again, complete with the same fears that people would find her first draft before she could rewrite it.
When Lamott sits down to write a shitty first draft, the first thing she has learned to do is quiet the voices in her head.
She names them:
The vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, who says primly, "Well, that's not very interesting, is it?"
The emaciated German male who writes Orwellian memos detailing your thought crimes.
Your parents, agonizing over your lack of loyalty and discretion.
William Burroughs, dozing off or shooting up because he finds you as bold and articulate as a houseplant.
The dogs in their pen who will surely hurtle and snarl their way out if you ever stop writing, because writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy, ravenous dogs contained.
Quieting these voices is at least half the battle she fights daily.
It used to be 87 per cent. Left to its own devices, her mind spends much of its time having conversations with people who are not there: defending herself to people, rationalising her behaviour, exchanging repartee, seducing them with gossip, or pretending she is on their TV show.
She would speed or run an ageing yellow light or come to a full stop, and then spend the next nanosecond explaining to imaginary cops exactly why she did what she did, or insisting that she did not in fact do it.
Lamott learned this from a hypnotist she once saw. She still uses it.
Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up.
Isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar.
Isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar. And so on.
Drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head.
Put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like rubbish because you will not do what they want, will not give them more money, will not be more successful, will not see them more often.
Imagine there is a volume-control button on the bottle. Turn it all the way up for a minute and listen to the stream of angry, neglected, guilt-mongering voices.
Then turn it all the way down and watch the frantic mice lunge at the glass, trying to get to you.
Leave it down, and get back to your shitty first draft.
A writer friend of Lamott's suggests opening the jar and shooting the mice. Lamott thinks he is a little angry, and is sure nothing like this would ever occur to you.
⚠️ The food review anecdote is Lamott's primary piece of evidence. It matters because it shows a professional, experienced writer going through the full cycle of panic, terrible first draft, and successful revision every single time, even after years. The process does not get easier; what changes is the writer's trust in it.
⚠️ Lamott's treatment of the inner critic is often tested. Be able to identify the specific voices she names (Reader Lady, German male, parents, Burroughs, the dogs) and explain why she personifies them. Personification makes the voices external, containable, and slightly absurd, which is part of how she manages them.
⚠️ The mouse-in-jar exercise is a concrete, testable technique. It works by acknowledging the voices (turning the volume up first), then choosing to set them aside (turning it down). It is not about pretending the anxiety does not exist.
⚠️ Lamott's description of procrastination and panic before writing is a deliberate rhetorical move. She is normalising the experience so that student writers recognise their own feelings as part of the process, not as evidence that they cannot write.
Q: Why does Lamott include the food review anecdote in such detail?
A: To demonstrate that even a professional writer with years of experience and a regular deadline goes through panic, a terrible first draft, and extensive revision every single time. The detail makes the point credible and shows that the process is ongoing, not something you graduate out of.
Q: What does Lamott do on the second day of writing a food review, and why does the result always turn out fine?
A: She goes through the bloated first draft with a coloured pen, cuts everything she can, finds a new lead somewhere on the second page, figures out an ending, and writes a second draft. It works because the raw material from the first draft contains the ingredients; the second draft is about selecting and shaping, which is a different (and more manageable) task than generating from nothing.
Q: Name at least three of Lamott's personified inner voices and explain what each represents.
A: The vinegar-lipped Reader Lady (dismissive judgement of quality), the emaciated German male (harsh self-surveillance and guilt), and the writer's parents (anxiety about loyalty, discretion, and what others will think). Others include William Burroughs (fear of being boring) and the dogs (the chaos that feels like it will break loose if you stop writing).
Q: How does the mouse-in-jar exercise work, and why does Lamott turn the volume up before turning it down?
A: You visualise each inner voice as a mouse, drop it into a jar, seal the lid, then use an imaginary volume knob. Turning the volume up first acknowledges the voices rather than suppressing them. Then turning it down is a deliberate choice to set them aside and return to writing. The exercise externalises the anxiety and gives the writer a sense of control over it.
Q: What is the significance of Lamott's repeated emphasis that "no one is going to see" the first draft?
A: It removes the performance pressure that feeds perfectionism. If the audience is zero, there is no reason to self-censor or aim for quality on the first pass. The privacy of the first draft is what makes it possible to write badly enough to discover the good material buried inside.
Anne Lamott, inner critic, writer's block, writing anxiety, perfectionism, self-censorship, food review anecdote, California magazine, mouse-in-jar exercise, visualisation for writers, procrastination, revision process, coloured pen editing, vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, internal editor, writing fears, Bird by Bird, process writing, composition, ENG R1A, UC Berkeley