I’ve heard that to be a good writer one should also be a good reader. Maybe they’re a good reader and had one great story in their mind. Having produced it, they were satisfied?
I just read a bio of the author Jack London. He suffered terrible poverty and dismal employment prospects as a youth. Writing was an escape. He produced a lot of mediocre work in order to get paid.
Yes, but you need to learn to linger over the text. To read it slowly in order to analyze how all the different parts fit together, to critically examine the overall structure, to consider how you would have or could rewrite it, to drill down into even the choice of words and how synonyms could have changed meaning and interpretation, to re-read it over and over across the years to see how your own life experiences change how you read the exact same content.
IMO not many people are either built for that, or are willing to expend that effort. Even I stumble - a lot.
Why contrarian? This comment further elaborates on the very idea I was pointing towards. From what well does a singular piece of writing spring?
And you describe it here—quite possibly from someone who reads deeply, and writes infrequently.