Back to the beginning

I have been doing a fair share of reading and researching on writing subjects.  I've tried to keep them as close to information about first drafts and their immediate revisions as I can.  If I venture out on too broad a variety of subjects about writing in general I will overwhelm myself with too much information.  I know I want to understand it all right this minute but it isn't a good approach.  I may try to understand it all but I know I will get impatient since I can't retain everything at once.  I know I need to narrow it down and focus on the issue at hand.
I think I have a better understanding of how the entire process might work.  I didn't get it when I started.  I didn't see the entire progression in my head so I fought things when they didn't make sense to me.  Everyone told me to just write the entire story first.  I struggled with that.  I didn't get the idea of just writing the story as a first draft.  I couldn't see it.  I had the idea that it was supposed to be 'the' story in as good a shape and form as it possibly could be. I had a million notes because I was trying to remember revisions and reworks as I was just trying to get the story down.  There was no way I could have incorporated them all at that time but I didn't know that.  People have crazy dreams that they are going to sit down and write a story and it's going to be this perfectly told tome in that one first sweep.  That's probably why so many people might attempt at writing but never finish. I know I could have stopped and quit many times.  It's probably why there are congratulations for finishing a first draft since there are so many that might start but never keep going.  At least it seems that way from what I have been reading.
And that is when I started to realize the entire progression.  It was tough getting through the first draft thinking it had to be good, better, best in that one writing.  There was a lot of disappointment in reading it back after finally finishing and seeing gaping holes in the story and characters.  I didn't want it to be like that but I can see how it happened. 
I have just gone back to start revisions and realized that here is my next opportunity to bridge the gaps and fill in the holes.  I can see how this turn in the process is supposed to go from here and I know it might take another turn and then maybe even another before it can be called done.  That is quite a different idea from the one of doing it all on point the first time around.  Thank goodness!  I get another opportunity I somehow didn't think I might have.  It's a wonder I didn't quit a long time ago. 
I know when I started out with this idea of writing a story it was a challenge to myself that I just wanted to write it.  Completing that first draft was what I thought the challenge was about.  Maybe it was.  Maybe I completed my own challenge.  Maybe I did it, but even so...I'm not done.
TT