How rushing protects the ego while sabotaging your potential

If you never share anything beyond "early draft," you never risk exposing your best effort and potential—and you never open yourself to criticism or rejection.

The end of the first draft is a creative precipice: the point at which the true work of writing a novel begins. Now that your initial thoughts are on the page, you can unpack, explore, and refine the book’s potential: themes and character arc, pacing and structure, twists and complications.

But it’s at this point that many writers perversely hurl themsel…