The Importance of Reading

We can't help but have deeply unrealistic standards of what a first draft produced by a fallible human being ought to look like. I bet the answer is far, far fewer than finished published books. But all that notwithstanding, reading with awareness and direction is going to light a fire onto your novel. If you do it less as a leisure activity and more as shameless looting, you'll find there are loads of great moves you can just nick and transplant into your own book. The shifting context just sort of transforms them. So even though you're trying your best to plagiarise, oops, you've accidentally done something brilliant and original. Anyway, it's like being such a crap forger