Trust your instincts

Trust your instincts. So you've been writing for awhile, learned a lot from critique partners, wrote a first, second, and third draft. It's almost done. One more read through and you're done. So you put the MS down for a month and do something else. You come back, now as a reader, not a writer and you begin to read. It's working great. You are enjoying the read as a reader, and then, there it is again. There's that section that every time you edited it, you paused. But the writing is so amazing. People will think you're a literary genius when they read this.

NOT, and your subconscious knows this. For me, there's usually several scenes that could use a rewrite or a cut. Put your subconscious to rest. It's not going to hurt too bad and you can copy that profound piece of literature into a file for use at a more appropriate time. Maybe in the next MS.

What usually happens, if you are me, anyway, is you forget about it or when you read it again, you wonder why you thought it was so exceptional.

You can fight any emotion, but you must satisfy your subconscious. It will send you ulcers otherwise.

Those are my profound words of wisdom. Just trust your instincts and you won't get ulcers. As a byproduct you might produce a bestselling novel. Who knew?