I've been writing poetry forever now and I really want to start practicing my story-telling skills. I've tried my hand at short stories off and on but the habit really never caught with me. In the past few months I've been thinking up characters, settings and concepts that all seem to be leaning towards a novel, or at the very least, a collection of short stories. As far as I can tell, it's going to end up being somewhere between fantasy and sci-fi.
My problem is the actual writing of the story: I knew that it would be hard to know where and how to start, but everything that I've gotten down on paper I'm constantly second-guessing and end up hating before long. The plot still isn't 100% worked out at all, which makes it even harder to know what I should be doing, but in general I'm feeling completely lost.
So, I have characters, settings, an overall theme and a vague idea of the direction I want to take. I've made some character profiles and have notes all over the place. What do I need to do in order to really start writing? Should I just ignore that part of my brain that tells me what does and doesn't read like a pile of shit for the time being? Should I just let it flow and see what happens?
I DEMAND YOUR ADVICE.
Please?