Here is my mean and grouchy oldhead writer comment.
I am so tired of "don't tell people that their first draft will be bad, it's discouraging!" or "don't tell people their first book will be bad, you'll make them not want to write it!!"
Not every single piece of writing advice needs to fluff you up. You should not need surround-sound validation to keep writing.
You have to practice if you want to be good at something. Practice work is not always good. In fact, most practice work is awful. That's why it's practice and not "go professional right now you're the best ever."
Writing is the only field where people think you don't have to practice before being good.
Every field requires practice and training.
Have you ever tried to play a musical instrument? You sucked at it the first time. You knew this, because most humans have an innate ear for music, and hopefully it didn't discourage you.
Most new writers don't have an ear for their writing yet because developing that ear requires training, so they fall into this Dunning-Kruger trap of believing their first draft of their first project is amazing. And then they publish too early, and then they hate it 20 years later and try to remove it from the internet.
Or, in my case, about 12 years later, but I unfortunately cannot remove said early books from my Goodreads profile because Goodreads is forever. At least they're not publicly available anymore.
Just. Go write. Do the work. You will survive writing bad first drafts, because a first draft isn't set in stone and can be revised as many times as you want. A first book can be revisited 20 years later and become amazing. You can only do that if you keep practicing so you develop your skills.
