In November 2014, I started writing a new novel during NaNoWriMo but ran out of steam after writing just shy of 10,000 words. Over the next five years, I worked on it intermittently, but by November 2018, the word count was still only around 30,000.
I finished the first draft of that novel, Practically Perfect in Every Way in March 2019, then revised it twice. I started another novel in October 2019 and I finished the first draft in March 2020. I submitted Practically Perfect to two writing contests in 2020 and made the finals in both. I participated in two online pitch events and got multiple requests from agents.
Why? What changed between November 2018, when I had a less than half-finished novel draft after five years of tinkering, and March 2019, when I finished it in four months?
Two things: a community of writers, and a book coach.
Writing is a solitary pursuit. You spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts. Sometimes you can focus those thoughts on the task at hand and produce the words you want. Other times, you’re not in charge—the Inner Critic is.
The Inner Critic is that voice in your head that says you’ll never finish, that you should be spending your writing time with your family or working harder at your day job. It says your writing is garbage, and you’ve wasted all those hours, all those years.
All writers know that voice, but some of us are better than others at shutting it up.
One way to neutralize that voice is to drown it out. In fall 2018, I found the first critique partner I’d had since the 1990s, when I was in a critique group—and finishing projects. When I started writing Practically Perfect, I didn’t have any writer friends, which meant the Inner Critic was the only channel playing in my head.
In November 2018, I decided that In 2019, I was going to fish or cut bait—finish my novel and try to publish it, or face the ugly truth that I wasn’t a writer and move on.
My day job at the time was overseeing a statewide instructional coaching program. I’d seen with my own eyes that coaching worked for teachers and knew it worked in other fields as well when I heard about a new type of coaching—book coaching.
After doing some research on book coaching, I signed up for a six month package with book coach Jill Angel at Author Accelerator. Three months into my work with Jill, I finished the first draft of Practically Perfect. At the end of six months, I’d revised it twice and was ready to query.
Would I have finished my novel without a coach? Maybe. I finished one back in the ’90s. During the six months I worked with Jill, I dramatically expanded my network of writer friends, joining the Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association (WFWA) and several Facebook writing groups. I made a lot of new writer friends in 2019 and found a new critique group. But having someone waiting for my new pages every week—and providing feedback to compete with the voice in my head—was invaluable.
Every writer has different life circumstances, but all writers have an Inner Critic. I don’t know what will work for you, but for me, having other voices to compete with the one in my head was what tipped the scales.