Lamott Essay: Response to Anne Lamott's "Polaroids"

Snap! The Polaroid camera releases a flash of light capturing the image upside down through the lenses and chemically combining to the film. Most of us just go randomly shooting trying to capture our precious memories as they arise. As amateur photographers, we only look at the subject and rarely pay attention to the other subtle subjects that feel the space that we weren’t so worried about. When we finally get our Polaroid it’s not the process of waiting, but taking a second look at the exposure. Noticing all the little details that we neglected to see that makes our picture scream a thousand words rather than a mere hundred.

There are two types of writers, process-based and product-based. A process-based writer is one who uses prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading and editing to develop their final product. A product-based writer is one who only cares about the finished product and doesn’t take all the steps a process-based writer does to end up with a final product. Anne Lamott who explains in her article “Polaroids” that she is a process-based writer and to her writing is like a developing Polaroid. Using the Polaroid metaphor, Lamott explains that for her, watching a Polaroid and not knowing what the picture is going to turn out until it has finished developing, is like writing a first draft.

Although, I myself am a process based writer, Lamott’s Polaroid technique doesn’t truly represent how I use a process for writing. My process allows me to see that my purpose can mature and become more meaningful as I recognize the supporting details. As said before we as amateur photographers don’t have the keen eye as professionals nor can we manipulate a camera meant for merely snapshots. Because of this loss of control we can’t effectively tell the story as it is presented to us. We don’t pay attention to the background of the idea nor that squirrel that just ran by as you pressed the lenses release button.

In “Polaroids” Lamott writes about attending a Special Olympics event that she is writing an article on. She says that going into the event she didn’t have any idea what the article would be focused on. Later in the day a mentally challenged man tugs on her sleeve and shows her a Polaroid of him and his friends together. At this moment an idea for Lamott’s article comes to her. “And this was the image from which an article began forming, although I could not have told you exactly what the piece would end up being about. I just knew that something had started to emerge,” (273). Unlike Lamott’s metaphoric idea of how writing is like a Polaroid developing, when I write I see the subject I see the main points but like that squirrel I didn’t see the little details that made the purpose important. When developing a point it’s the little details we didn’t catch during our first glance that makes the piece truly fly off the page. The processes of the Polaroid developing in our hands help us notice all the small details I had missed but don’t change the ending purpose. This maybe come a tedious ritual but I know each time I look at the final product the more beautiful it becomes.

In words a little less metaphorically I write in a process. Like most projects I have an idea, something I want to share with the audience that I feel is important enough to move them or even influence them. My process truly begins after I have jotted down the main ideas and the supporting details that make my point worth arguing. When I feel the idea has fully matured I start to express them on the paper. I add details and develop the point to where the story flows and effectively tells my purpose without giving it all to you all at once. I look over the first roughly written draft and tear apart. Rearranging the piece to better fit the invisible time line that allows the points to be fully understood. The process becomes more tedious as I reread the piece over and over again to make points clearer and remove the points that have become redundant. Revising is the next step in this process and one that can be very important so the reader can fully comprehend rather than trip over misplaced commas and wrong words. After another read and that I feel that the paper has truly accomplished its goal then I can say I’m finished.

As a writer we are never truly finished with this ritual. We are our biggest fans and at the same time our biggest critics and each time we reread our pieces we find something we could have done differently. Sometimes to improve our point or to even show a change in our views as time lingers by. We look at Lamott’s “Polaroids” and we are reminded that when we take a snapshot we are getting more than just the picture we had planned to achieve but that moment in time and all the little details that narrate the story we hope to tell.