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re: the braindump on the first draft - Ernest Hemingway said he'd "write drunk, edit sober".

Steven King wrote a rant on the same topic, about throwing away dictionaries and spell checkers while in the zone, otherwise you risk getting sucked into editing too early and derailing the creation process.

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I've found that it works well even with programming. Braindump code to get things working as quickly as possibly, then refactor mercilessly. Stephen Kings "On Writing" is pretty good read in general and useful not only for fiction but other writing and the creative process as well.

A design equivalent for me would be to start with low fidelity mocks (quick paper sketches, gray boxy wireframes, whiteboarding) before going for higher fidelity and adding visual polish.

Like how this: http://dribbble.com/shots/230767-Stats-Page-For-iOS-App

Turns into this: http://dribbble.com/shots/246763-Appstores-Analytics-Main-St...

Often when I find myself running into creative blocks, it's because I started working on the window dressing too early in the process and need to scale it back to rougher designs.

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