There’s nothing like a first draft — whether it’s your 1st first draft or your 10th — to make you feel like an amateur, or a diner at a restaurant that consistently receives one-star reviews on Yelp. It’s easy to picture your novel’s own one-star review on Goodreads.

Thank goodness for revision and the advice of other authors to remind us that the road to publishing is well-traveled and littered with dead drafts that may one day spring to life and make you less likely to gag.

• Just how many manuscript drafts will you need to get to the center of your novel and publishing dream? Many. So, so many, including that all-important “vomit draft.”
• Which draft includes the anxiety over whether or not there is too much profanity and if that will turn off potential readers? Censoring Your Novel – When Is The F Word Appropriate?
• “We want to do all we can to promote our writing—and good writing in general—but sometimes the rituals by which we put ourselves out there can seem empty and exhausting. And if we choose to reject them altogether, we can feel like we’re not being good team players or doing our part.” Ah, the introverted writer’s lament.
• Introverted and extroverted writers may find less to lament when armed with author Robin Black’s list of 21 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Started Writing: Must-Read Advice for Writers at All Levels, such as “4. Not everyone will love your work. Not everyone will like your work. Some people will hate your work. Don’t put energy into pursuing the fantasy of universal adoration.”
• The next time a reader tells you that your plot doesn’t make sense or is utterly unbelievable, feel free to whip out this list of The 20 Biggest Plot Holes In World History.