Open Letter to the First Draft
An ode to the courage it takes to show up before you're ready.
Every time we meet, I’m in a different state.
Sometimes it’s hard to face your whiteness. Sometimes I spill nonsense onto the page just to make the silence go away. Other times, ideas rush to compete for the first sentence. On rare days, we fall into rhythm like old friends—those rare friendships that pick up effortlessly, no matter how long it’s been.
But it’s usually after that initial awkwardness—after we stumble through small talk—that we find our groove. My fingers take on a life of their own, and the dance begins.
Here’s a thing I’ve always appreciated about you:
You let me wander, take wrong turns, find dead ends, and still trust that I’ll find my way back.
You don’t mind when the structure is a mess or when the flow breaks without notice. You don’t flinch when new ideas arrive uninvited and silently rewrite the original plan.
It’s in that very openness that my ideas learn to breathe. Where real questions rise to the surface, and my contradictions finally meet.
You allow me to write before I understand—and that may be your greatest gift.
We go through the same arc again and again. From not knowing where we’re going, to eventually stumbling onto something clear and true. We keep faith in the process, even when doubt pretends to know better. Because as Anne Lamott reminds us, “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it.”
I know there’s a part of me—the inner General—who doesn’t always respect what we have. He hovers nearby, insisting I tighten every awkward sentence before I’ve even reached the end of the paragraph. He interrupts our pace, tries to get control of the process, and denies our magic. I swear I do my best to keep him outside the room, but sometimes, he's stronger than me.
And maybe that’s why I never show you to anyone. Not out of shame, exactly—but because what we share is unpolished, unfinished, and deeply personal. No one else was there. It’s our inside joke, something only we can understand.
Still, I admire your courage to go first. To move forward even knowing you’ll never take the spotlight. Even knowing some of our favorite lines won’t survive the second draft. Even knowing your chaos isn’t appreciated by the General. As Shannon Hale puts it, “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”
Without you, I’d never find myself in dialogue with the great minds—Socrates, Jung, Orwell, Dostoyevsky—who continue to shape the way we understand what it means to be human.
And somehow, like them, I keep coming back to you. To the ritual. The silence. The uncertainty. The rough start that somehow leads somewhere meaningful.
You, first draft, are not just the beginning; you’re the proof that I had the courage to show up.
Funny, isn’t it, how even now—as I glance away, searching for the next sentence—the silence feels more honest than anything I could write.
Maybe that’s the signal.
Time to let the General take over and see what he makes of what we’ve begun.