City wok, first drafts

The assumption about good writing, or for that matter, good music, shows, art, or even inventions, is that the people who create it have immaculate first 'drafts'. Anne Lamont argues that it takes the freedom to let yourself fuck around a little with your first draft in order to have enough truthful material to work with; although she uses a less satisfying expletive to call attention to the same idea. This assumption is so prevalent because people tend to only see the end of a process, so when they see success, they don't also see the work and time spent behind the process. Lamott sees the real process as a childlike release during your first draft, letting all your ideas plop on the page without too much discretion. Then you go back and do a major fix up during the second draft, and the third draft you do minor fixes, and so on. The important part to note is the mindset she proposes having during the first draft - being open and raw in the privacy of your (secret) first draft.

Wikipedia allows us to see the first drafts of articles and subsequent edits. This is helpful because it lets the user see the direction of the article by examining what's stayed for how long. It also provides a standard bar for articles that are accepted because every live article has a first draft. I believe in the evolution of thought, as knowledge varies from person to person, communication 'breeds' new ideas, and ideas 'die' out as new ones replace them. In this instance, being able to see the beginning and intermediate steps of a wikipedia article could reveal the evolution of the idea.