First drafts: how bad is too bad?

I just finished a first draft of a chapter that is genuinely terrible. Like, embarrassingly bad. Someone tell me this is normal.

It's not just normal, it's required. If your first draft is good, you're not taking enough risks. A clean first draft means you're writing within your comfort zone.

I rewrite my first paragraphs 30-40 times. Not an exaggeration. The first draft exists to teach you what you're actually trying to say. You can't know that before you write it.

In poetry we call it 'writing toward the poem.' The first five drafts are just you finding out what the poem wants to be. The poem knows before you do.

There's a wonderful Toni Morrison quote about this: 'I always know the ending; that's where I start.' But even she revised extensively. The first draft is the conversation between intention and discovery.

This makes me feel better. I'm going to stop apologizing to my editor for sending rough chapters and start framing them as 'discovery drafts.' Much more dignified.