Zarien Hsu Gee offers “fast drafting” as a creative process:
Fast drafting is a way to break through creative paralysis, to see what might be possible with an idea or writing project. When you commit to writing fast without judgment, you bypass the inner critic that can slow your progress to a crawl or even prevent you from moving forward at all.
The beauty of fast drafting lies in its imperfection. By calling it a “fast draft,” you free yourself from the expectation of perfectionism. You accept fast drafting as a necessary creative process in order to move forward with your work, and your expectations for its literary genius is low. Your goal is just to get it all down.
The fast draft also serves as confidence booster. It reminds you that you can write this story, this novel, this memoir.
When you write fast enough to outrun judgment, your creativity has a chance to show you what’s possible.
Fast drafting is giving yourself permission to create freely. Speed helps you outrun your inner critic long enough so you can see what you’re capable of creating. It is an essential step towards creating something meaningful.
Excerpted from “Outrunning the Inner Critic: In Praise of Fast Drafting,” The Brevity Blog March 13, 2025 post.
Darien Hsu Gee is the author of five novels published by Penguin Random House that have been translated into eleven languages. Her collection of micro memoirs, Allegiance, about growing up Chinese American, won the 2012 bronze IPPY award for essays. Darien received a 2015 Hawai’i Book Publishers’ Ka Palapala Po’okela Award of Excellence for Writing the Hawai’i Memoir. Join Darien at writerish.substack.com where she offers free guided 10-minute writing sessions.
