Before this semester, I was horrible at drafting. I tended to revise as I wrote and I had thought that was enough. I have learned the error of my ways and now I hardly understand how I managed beforehand. This excerpt is from the first draft of my final essay:"My phases start with a trigger. In one of my classes a professor mentioned panpipes. Of course, this started a phase. I made two sets out of straws, experimenting a little with each. And then I couldn't help myself, and I bought a couple PVC pipes and my dad and I built a set. I've been trying to learn a couple songs. And it all started with an offhand remark in a class."
This passage isn't exactly bad. I did include some details, wrote it like a story, and proved how odd my phases can be. But I wanted it to do more than just that. My final draft is practically a different paper. It took a total of five drafts, a personal record, but I finally stopped with something I was happy with. By the time I got to my final draft, I had I chosen different concrete details, reordered a couple sentences, made references to other phases, and added a bit of satire directed at myself. I ended up with this:
"In one of my classes, a professor mentioned panpipes in an offhand remark. Of course, this started a phase. Later, in my apartment, I pulled out some straws, cut them at exactly the right number of centimeters with a borrowed exact-o knife and plugged them with sticky tack and duct tape. I used yarn to keep the straws together (it was leftover from my crocheting blankets phase), and tried to play a few songs. They made a tiny, airy sound, but I was hooked. I listened to panpipe music and found places that made bamboo sets. My next stop was at a hardware store. I bought three strands of quarter inch PVC pipe, and the next time I was home, I enlisted my dad to help me measure and cut the pieces. Originally, that set was two-tiered, but I quickly realized that was overkill and reduced it to just eight notes. I duct taped them together carefully, clogging them with a penny held in place by duct tape. I sanded all the rough edges, and found some panpipe sheet music online (much simpler than piano, which I had tried to learn a year beforehand). This was all within two weeks of that original comment in class."
I have learned the importance and beauty of drafting, and I'll never go back.
