Episode 2 - What if everyone hates my work?

Strangely, this doesn't completely go away once you've been published.

I've published multiple books now.

I've had editors read my work many times.

I've had reviews, and readers, and launches, and all of it, and I still have to send someone the first version of a new book.

I still have that moment where someone who knows what they're doing is going to open the document and find out what I've done.

Every new book gives people another opportunity to have an opinion.

Maybe you've written something different from your previous work.

Maybe you've taken a bigger risk.

Maybe the last book did particularly well, and now you're wondering whether this one can live up to it, or maybe the last one didn't do what you'd hoped, and now this book seems to be carrying the weight of proving you can still do it.

Being published doesn't solve the problem of being seen.

In some ways, it just changes who's looking.

Because being read means being seen.

Not literally, but your writing reveals you in ways that you don't necessarily expect.

There is something of you in the work, even when you're writing fiction.

And so when someone judges the work, it can feel surprisingly close to them judging you, and that can change what you write.