Working at what isn't free

In the comments on the last post, S.A. Cox said "Historically, however, with both writing and teaching, one of the main keys to my development has been trusting my instincts about what is working and what isn't, and then working like a dog at what isn't."

My experience with trusting my instincts has been good; maybe I'll have more to say about that some other time. What I really wanted to talk about here was the "working like a dog at what isn't working" part.

The first step is diagnosis, which ca