DASTB STUDY GUIDE

I write many drafts. Most of my first drafts used to be handwritten. These days, I'm a keyboarder, but I do a lot of corrections in pencil or pen on printouts of the draft. My favorite writing advice book since it was published in 1994 has been Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird. A favorite bit of wisdom: "The first draft is the down draft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft--you fix it up. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose, or cramped, or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy." After the dental draft, I find it very useful to do a detailed outline--it helps me get my bearings, figure out where to go next.