To make an interesting building, you've got to go beyond that foundation, ignoring it as much as you can without having the building fall apart. In the same way, it's good to be cooperative, but don't be too humble either. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with a first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing. In fiction especially, anything that could happen, should happen.
Writing has to be an obsession.
It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating. When I start a book, I always think it's patently absurd that I can write one. No one, certainly not me, can write a book 500 pages long. But I know I can write 15 pages, and if I write 15 pages every day, eventually I will have 500 of them. Now that I'm all grown up, they call me a writer.