one of the most difficult things, for me, in revision is when my first draft is a more solid first draft. its easier when they’re sloppy messy things that can be tucked and prodded and pinned back here and there. i need to expand a poem, and the initial draft or two left it pretty close to there. so i have to go back, take out the seams, let it out to add what needs to be added, and stitch it back together again.
“Writing a first draft is like groping one’s way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you’ve forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one’s mind comes to inhabit the material fully.”
– Ted Solotaroff
&
“The waste paper basket is the writer’s best friend.”
– Isaac B. Singer
Renee Emerson 
thoughts?