I write quickly, get it all out, and then leave it alone for a week, and then edit the hell out of it. I’ll read my own book like 30 times, but I think that’s where I fail. When you read something too much, you can’t tell what’s good or what’s bad anymore.
And then I start to researching agents and publishing (again) and getting incredibly overwhelmed, because of how impossible it all seems.
My stupid little book that I wrote has to go up against a bad economy, a changing market, make it past a slush pile of thousands of query letters to get an agent, who then has to beat out lots of other eligible titles to get a publisher, who has to try and get my book on shelves so people will actually buy it, and then somebody has to look at it and go, “Yeah. This is worth $6.” There’s too many steps to fail.
It seems like even the greatest book ever written hardly stands a chance, and I can guarantee that my book is not the greatest book ever written.
So then I write my book, get as perfect as possible, send off query letters, and declare that it will never, ever be published and I’d better learn to live with that.