Anna asked David Wong:

Have you ever felt discouraged writing the first draft? I'm writing a novel right now, and despite how much I enjoy explaining the plot and characters, when I actually read over it, it feels like I'm doing it wrong. I want to just finish it so I can go back and fix everything, but I keep getting stuck in this weird part where I love it and hate it at the same time and then never actually finish it...

David Wong I'm speaking only for myself here and another author might say different, but you're dead in the water if you don't enjoy reading what you wrote. I think you have to get some kind of foundation of stuff you love down before you can finish it, rather than putting off till later the process of making it something you love.

I don't know if getting it to that place means polishing it more or scrapping it and going with a different idea (sometimes the plot or characters themselves might be fatally flawed from the start) but if what you have down so far doesn't excite you there's not much point in pressing forward. In my opinion, anyway. But no I wouldn't personally ever say, "Well I have to get a boring version down and then I'll make it good later." You have to, to some degree, feel yourself what you want the reader to be feeling. Otherwise you're not going to know where to take the story.

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