I used to think you had to start at the beginning and write chronologically. People would always ask to see what I've written so far. That just made me freeze up and take forever, because if people were going to be looking at it, I wanted to make sure everything was perfect, and there was high prose, and good dialogue, and no plot holes. That's one of the reasons it took me years to finish my first book. Eventually I learned not to let anyone read it until I at least had a finished first draft. I can just get the gist of the story down and not have to worry about plot holes or good writing. If I get stuck on a part or don't know how to word something, I'll skip it and come back to it later. My first draft reads like an outline, very crude, and very slowly as it comes to me I make it longer and add in the dialogue and description and cut out stuff that doesn't work.
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