In fact, the only way I get to write anything is to write really, really shitty first drafts.4 The first draft is the baby's draft, where you leave it pour it all out and then let it unleash everywhere, knowing that no one will see it and that you can shape it later. You simply let this childlike part of you channel all the voices and visions that come to and on the page. If one of the characters wants to say, "Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?", you let them. Nobody will see it. If the guy wants to get into really sentimental, whiny, emotional territory, let him. Put it all in black and white because there might be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to through more rational, adult means. There might be something in the last line of the last paragraph on page six that you love, that is so beautiful or wild that now you know what you should write about, more or less, or what direction you could go in, but there was no way to get there to this without first reading the first five and a half pages.5 I wrote food reviews for California magazine before it folded. (My