Jump off a Cliff (part 2)

(read part 1, first)
I have to admit, I heard the same lecture at Vermont that the 'Through the Tollbooth' writers did (or else that faculty member uses this example every few years) and I heard the sound of over a hundred writers gasping. Maybe it was just my own intake of breath, but it seemed loud -- as if the whole room had done it.

Get your first draft written down
and then --
Hit the DELETE key?
(gasp)

How brave.
How foolish.
Are you certain you will remember enough of what you wrote to be able to recreate it?
If you delete it -- it's gone -- For-ev-er.

And yet.
And yet....
And yet, how many times have you been unable to find a file and had to recreate what you had done?
Misplaced a paper?
Woke up in the middle of the night with a thought/ wrote it down/ and were unable to read it in the morning?
Delete.
You had to recreate it.

Did you decide that your second try might have been a tiny bit better than your first attempt? And, since you weren't locked into that first version, you were free to improve/ expand/ etc.
I'm just rambling here.

Have you done this? -wendieO

Jump off a Cliff

Are you brave enough to jump off a cliff?
Not literally.
Just writerly.

The writers over at theTollbooth blog talk today about jumping off a cliff -- completing the first draft of a novel and then -- hit the delete button and begin writing it all over again.

Are you brave enough to do this?
(Okay, if you are a coward like me, I give you permission to do like I do and save a copy somewhere.)
If you have tried this, did you discover that the second version was stronger/ tighter/ a better story?
-wendie old