It's not so much a draft as a "spread it out, clear the workspace in your head, sift through for savables." Along the way, you can get to the story that works and you can play with the bad stuff later.

I've been reading through this whole thread this morning and back in 2008, Barb told Joe to try a DLD (don't look down) draft. I think that's what I need to do. It's scary, but something has to give.

It IS scary and if you're just dipping your toes into fiction, perhaps it's the best approach. I do a LOT of mental writing-- as Connie said, it pretty much counts as my first draft, so that when I sit down to write, I just pretty much go and produce a pretty clean "first draft." Doesn't mean I'm not tweaking and editing as I go along, but by this point, I know my process fairly well.

However, lately, I've been fighting with the inner critic as well, because I find myself branching out into genre conventions that are MASSIVELY unfamiliar territory for me. (Ghost YA anyone? Scary? Oh, my, YES.)

Trust the story instincts, Cindy. See where it takes you.

How do you all shut your internal critic the hell up?

It's tricky. Mine is still keeping me from a project I've had on the go for about a year now. With me, being a not-always-mentally-healthy type, the writing internal critic is an extension of a more general inner voice that says I'm not worthwhile and gives me lots of reasons why not. Getting focused on the project is my answer - procrastination is the devil's best friend, and something that I struggle with a lot. But when I can get into something, the inner critic usually shuts up. (Until I see it in print/online, and it starts again, of course!)

Fiction's mainly not my thing, but it sounds to me like you've got characters taking you places. Go with them.

Trust the story instincts, Cindy. See where it takes you

Or, this.

procrastination is the devil's best friend

We have a little plaque that reads "Jesus loves you but I'm his favorite." Reading what you just said Seska...I think I need an additional plaque.

I love you guys. Thank you so much. This was just the boot in the ass I needed yesterday and somehow, it broke the jam. I'd been afraid that the major conflict between my two main characters was going to leave the female unsympathetic. This conversation made me dig down deeper, and create another conflict not to replace the major conflict (which is the point of my story), but one that was the genesis of it that sort of levels the playing field.

Confidential to Inner Critic: It is NOT cliched. Shut up. Also, I don't care if it's controversial. In fact, yippee if it is.

I am almost never free of The Critic.

Me too, erika. This time she's being an awful bully, though. I'm used to her piping up 5,000 words in and telling me the 2nd paragraph is crap and needs to be addressed RIGHT NOW. I'm not used to her rising to the fore and deleting everything I've written. I wish I could get her drunk without getting me drunk (because I've written drunk and it in no way enhances my thinking).

How come you're up so early?

ACK! Don't DELETE!

Or at least, put it in a separate file. You just never know what the lizard brain is up to.

Oh my god, I never delete anything more than a word. If it's a scene or even a few paragraphs, I save it to a new file called "Bits and Pieces" or something similar, and save it in case I need it later.

::fans self::

Mom's back at work and high school starts crazy-early. Which I never really noticed when I was in one...I guess I became a night person when I was older. But it sort of feels like that old commercial "We do more before 11 than some people do all day."

I never used to delete. I think I got in the habit with recaps. The deadlines are short (since I supposedly "weecap" most of my shows -- which for me, just means my time and paycheck is wee, not my word count). Either a thing works or it doesn't.

Historically, I've pasted stuff I've removed onto the end of a doc, so it's all right in there. I just got out of the swing of doing it.

I have a new question about flashbacks, time jumps, and similar devices. How do you all feel about them as readers? And, as writers, if you use them, what are your guidelines.

For example, I want to start my story in the present day, with my main character as adults, but they've known one another since childhood and some of the conflict has its genesis in their childhood. Now I could just cover that in narration I suppose, but sometimes, I like the flashback. It seems more like showing, whereas exposition is almost always telling.

I was recently reading Stephen King's On Writing, though, and if I recall correctly, he thinks flashbacks are generally a bad idea. (Although I swear I've read books of his where he's used them).