Novel-Writing Mistakes You Didn’t Know You Were Making (Until Now)

I’ve written a lot of books.

I don’t say that because it makes me sound cool. (Does it?) I say it because I have written a lot of books, which means I have made a lot of mistakes.

It’s hard to evaluate the quality of your own work. But it’s easy to spot the things you aren’t doing right — the way you’re approaching your writing time, the way you plan, the small things you worry about when you should be sitting there writing — once you know to look for them.

I see writers making these mistakes. And I don’t want you to waste your time making them!

Trying to write “the perfect book”

Let’s keep this short and sweet: this isn’t possible, so stop trying. The first draft of every single book you write is going to be terrible, and I’m not saying that because I’m a mean…