Quotes from David E. Fessenden

Your father may never have produced one of those stuffy tomes we call great literature, but he left the world a substantial collection of delightful adventure stories.

If you're a perfectionist about your writing, [your rough draft] is the time to get over it. . . . Decide ahead of time that your rough draft is going to be pretty awful, and join the ranks of the great writers of the world. . . . Save the niceties for the revision stage.

Editors and agents have an uncanny ability to zero in on the very thing you knew—but didn't want to admit—was wrong with your proposal or manuscript.