Outrunning the Inner Critic: In Praise of Fast Drafting

by Darien Hsu Gee

A few years ago, a writer friend struggled for months with a memoir project, writing and rewriting the same five chapters. She’d craft beautiful sentences, then delete them. She’d restructure scenes, then change them back. When I asked how much of the book she’d completed, she told me, “Just these opening chapters. I can’t move forward until I get them right.” She eventually abandoned the project entirely.

What my friend needed wasn’t more time or talent—she needed to ...