Shitty First Drafts vs Standardized Writing Tests

Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” put into words the exact reason why I have always hated writing examinations given in high school. As a perfectionist, I have been cursed with forever being dissatisfied by my own work. No amount of time or effort can make me feel as if whatever I did was enough. You can image the amount of stress I put myself under every time I took an AICE exam in high school. They wanted 600 words in 60 minutes; that is 10 words per minute; 1 word every 6 seconds. (Yes, my anxiety thinks in numbers.) The frustrating part is that these 600 words (minimum) could not be a shitty first draft. We were expected to write and revise in this single time period. No time to sit and think on it. No time to write twice as much as needed just to sort through the trash. I have been trained to skip the shitty first draft and, therefore, all of the beautiful moments that it may contain. I guess that I should mention that I never excelled on these tests. With all of this being said, I am excited for this semester of ENC2135. I have always appreciated literature but never gave it a chance because I have always been too slow to do well on these school tests. My mind thinks fast with numbers and so that is what I am studying at Florida State. However, I feel as if I will miss out on a more enjoyable career involving creative writing. Maybe this class will give me confidence that I never had in myself. Just maybe I will change the path that standardized testing has led me to believe is my fate.