Stephen King
once wrote
“Write with the door closed,
rewrite with the door open.
Your stuff starts out
being just for you,
in other words,
but then it goes out.”
First, we craft
what WE want to craft,
our vision of the product.
We likely have some perimeters.
It is an expansion of
our fruit punch line,
for example,
so it should consist
of more than one
fruit juice.
Or it should be the same length
as the rest of our stories
so it has the same pricing.
But other than that,
WE are leading
the product development.
Once we’ve completed
the creative part
(and this doesn’t mean
actually developing the product),
THEN we bring in
other people to judge or criticize.
“Don’t try to create
and analyze
at the same time
John Cage pointed out
they’re different processes.
Doing one will interfere
with the other.”
Why do we wait?
Because it is extremely hard
to create something,
to think outside the box,
when other people
are hovering around us,
reminding us the box is there.
Create First.
Evaluate and fine-tune
later.