I’m the one who has to make it good

This is something I’ve been thinking about as I prepare to write the first draft of my second book in a few weeks. I’m the one who has to make it good. I know it sounds obvious, but in our culture of convenience, redundant teams, insurance, and hedged bets, it’s rare to take 100% of the responsibility and blame for something.

In his book Perennial Seller, Ryan Holiday says this. “Name one person who should be more invested in the potential success of this project than you. (If you can name someone, bring him or her on as a partner right now!)” As a writer who is (currently) without an agent, this is undeniable. No one else stands to gain even a fraction of what I do.

The onus is on me. I’m the one who has to make it good. I can’t half-ass a chapter or a paragraph, just to get it done, thinking an editor or a publisher will tighten up the screws for me. At the risk of battling new resistance, I have to write what is, in my mind, a bulletproof first draft. Then I need to find an editor and a publisher to shoot holes in it.