Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts.People tend to look at successful writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter.(My writing food reviews had nothing to do with the magazine folding, although every single review did cause a couple of canceled subscriptions. Some readers took umbrage at my comparing mounds of vegetable puree with various ex-presidents' brains.) These reviews always took two days to write.I'd write a lead paragraph that was a whole page, even though the entire review could only be three pages long, and then I'd start writing up descriptions of the food, one dish at a time, bird by bird, and the critics would be sitting on my shoulders, commenting like cartoon characters.I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.Even after I'd been doing this for years, panic would set in. I'd try to write a lead, but instead I'd write a couple of dreadful sentences, XX them out, try again, XX everything out, and then feel despair and worry settle on my chest like an x-ray apron.They'd be pretending to snore, or rolling their eyes at my overwrought descriptions, no matter how hard I tried to tone those descriptions down, no matter how conscious I was of what a friend said to me gently in my early days of restaurant reviewing.Not one of them writes elegant first drafts.First I'd go to a restaurant several times with a few opinionated, articulate friends in tow.Finally I would pick up my one-inch picture frame, stare into it as if for the answer, and every time the answer would come: all I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft of, say, the opening paragraph.Maybe, I'd think, I can get my old job back as a clerk-typist.And no one was going to see it. 6 So I'd start writing without reining myself in. It was almost just typing, just making my fingers move.All good writers write them.This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated.It's over, I'd think calmly.Then I'd stop, remember to breathe, make a few phone calls, hit the kitchen and chow down.Eventually I'd go back and sit down at my desk, and sigh for the next ten minutes.All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much.I'd sit there writing down everything anyone said that was at all interesting or funny.I'm ruined.I'm through.