I wish I could give you more responses re your writing and thinking. But as a quick nimble thinker and slow dyslexic typist that would take too much time away from my many writing projects.

The main thing is practice. And you appear to be doing that by many drafts. This is good. When I began writing - many years ago - my writing was crap.

You could ask yourself questions that are adapted from method acting techniques.

Who am I?

Where am I?

What do I want?

Why am I here?

Where am I going?

How am I to get there?

Substitute the word "I" with your subject matter. A lot of writing is organizing your thinking and asking questions of yourself in relationship to your subject matter.

Are there really "toxic people" or are have these people lost their way and as a result are engaging in toxic behaviors? Many people bandy about the phrase "toxic people" thus helping to foster an increasingly divisive culture. Whatever happened to "bearing the unpleasant manifestations of others?