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I push myself away from writing down the ideas I get until it gets to the point where it's literally physically hurting me to not let these ideas out. That is when I consider an idea ripe to write. Once the idea has been unleashed, I write incessantly, non-stop, without thinking. It is only when the idea begins to tamper out, that all the days and weeks of thoughts begin to run sparse and the highly-detailed points become thin, do I sit back and look through what I had written. It is at this point that I begin to flesh the story out. The world it takes place in, its history, political inclinations, culture and creed. Then I flesh out the main characters in the same way - personal history, social status, base personality traits, defining characteristics (physically, emotionally, personally), opinions and beliefs, things like that. After the main characters comes the secondary characters (those who are not the protagonist but are prominent characters) with the same development, and then finally the support throw-away characters who are given little more than a name, general build, and general personality type. I do not really outline things; I have a basic idea of main events, and discuss them with some confidants to solidify them. I do, however, outline all of the background information - it's not uncommon for me to create appendices with all of the history of people and places and mythos that are around 10 pages long. I am a world-builder. The most enjoyment I get is from building complex, fleshed-out worlds. The next level of enjoyment comes from creating unique characters. Then comes fitting those characters into the world and defining the symbiotic relationship between world and characters, and characters to other characters. The least enjoyable part for me is describing present-tense motion, or the actual linear story. That's the hardest part for me. So do I just sit down and write, without much of a plan? Sort of. I often write without an outline or a draft or anything like that to steer my path, but I sit down with general ideas in my mind that I want to strive toward. Of course, I am also a proponent of the concept of "surrender yourself to your writing," where you effectively take a back seat once the seed has been planted, and allow the story to progress in whichever way it wants to go. I can sit back and sort of trim it when it starts to wander too far off the path I had planned for it, but I give the story plenty of wiggle-room. It is my belief that if you want a story to feel organic, then you have to let it be organic; you have to let it grow and find its own path through the rings and hurdles you, as the author, set up for it. That's my personal belief.