🪶 i’m reading through my manuscript and it sucks

how reading through my third draft went

Jan 27, 2026

Before beginning the fourth draft of my book, I read through the previous draft to see how it flowed together as a whole. I’d been so focused on editing in small chunks that I needed to look at it from a bird’s-eye view. Then I could write down any character/plot things that weren’t working so I could fix them.

At this point, I hadn’t touched my manuscript in a month and a half. I needed some distance from it so that I could read it the way a reader would. It allowed me to better catch the things that weren’t working, as I wasn’t as close to the story.

And boy, did I catch them.

Reading through my manuscript was a challenge. I know some writers love doing it, but I struggled big time. So I wanted to share what this part of the process was like for me and how I attempted to shift my mindset to help get through it.

And be sure to subscribe so you can follow along as I begin editing draft 4!

my book sucks

That heading pretty much sums up how I felt reading through my book.

I was going into the read-through feeling somewhat hopeful, but that hope was quickly crushed as I realized that my book didn’t live up to my expectations in the slightest.

I hated it. I thought the writing was horrible and that it didn’t flow together well and that the characters were emotionally all over the place. It read like a bunch of broken-up short stories rather than a fluent book. My current skills just weren’t good enough to execute the vision I had in my head.

I know in actuality, it’s probably not as bad as I think it is. But that’s the thing with being a writer/artist. A lot of us are extra critical of ourselves and our work.

Maybe because we have to be like that to get better. We’re supposed to look at our work through a critical lens and pick out the flaws so that we can fix them. But this leads to us looking at our creations in a rather dreary way, through the opposite of rose-colored glasses (gray-colored, maybe?)

But regardless of why, I hated my book.

So I now had a choice. Would I let this spiral me into a months-long writer’s block like it had in my previous draft? Would I let it destroy my confidence and make me give up my dream of being an author? Or would I persevere and push on, knowing that the only way out was through?

I’m not going to lie, I toggled with both options. But in the end, I chose the latter. I chose to continue writing. And the only way I was able to do that was to shift my mindset. Here are the three shifts I made:

base your confidence on your beliefs, not on your abilities

I came across this advice when browsing through YouTube one day. I love consuming inspirational content on there, specifically from other writers, as following along with their journeys makes me more motivated to pursue my creative dreams.

And what I ended up finding was a video from an artist (a painter, to be exact) that was titled “How I Tricked Myself Into Believing I Could.”

I immediately clicked on it and was gifted with the exact advice I was looking for. Basically, she talked about how when you’re a beginner artist, you have to adopt the delusional belief that it’s all going to work out, that one day you’re going to be a success. And you then need to base your confidence on that undying belief, rather than on your current abilities.

Because at the beginning, your abilities aren’t going to be very good. You’re still learning and practicing and growing. So if every artist decided whether they should continue pursuing their creative dreams based on their talent at the beginning, no one would ever get past those early stages.

So I tried to develop the delusional belief that, one day, I was going to be a NYT bestselling author. I thought about it frequently, felt what it would be like, really tried to embrace that reality. And after a while, I slowly started to believe it.

It didn’t change that I still disliked my book, but it did change how I felt about disliking my book. Instead of letting it discourage me, I just saw this draft as a stepping stone on the way to achieving my dreams.

It didn’t matter that the book was bad because future me was already a success. She was looking back on current me and telling me not to worry. That eventually we would get there, and that this was just necessary practice. A part of the process. It motivated me to want to write more, so that I could eventually become the successful writer I believed I could be.

allow the negative thoughts to exist, but don’t let them control your actions

Throughout the 2.5 years that I’ve been writing my first book, there have been many times when I’ve gotten caught up in negative thoughts and allowed them to impact my actions. I would get so discouraged by thoughts like “I’m not a good writer,” or “this book sucks,” or “maybe I shouldn’t even pursue this dream,” that it made me temporarily stop writing. The negativity sucked up all my motivation and inspiration.

But this time, I was determined not to let that happen.

I realized that I may not be able to control what I think, but I can control what I do. And when working in a creative industry where rejection is rampant and luck often determines success, we artists have to focus on what we can control.

What I could control was showing up every day and working on my book. So that’s what I did. I let all the negative thoughts blab on in the background of my brain, but I learned to ignore them and write anyway.

And the amazing part about doing this is that when your negative thoughts realize they’re having no impact on what you do, that they can’t control you, they’ll slowly start to fade away. You’ll begin to see them as just a story instead of the absolute truth.

it’s good that you can see the flaws because then you can fix them

Another huge mindset shift for me was deciding to be grateful that I could see all of the flaws in my book. Because if I know what they are, then I can work on improving them. When a writer can’t see what’s wrong with their book, that’s the real issue. Because then they can’t make it better.

Also, I’m in the editing stage right now. There should still be flaws with my book. It would be strange if there weren’t. So I’m no longer seeing flaws as a bad thing, but rather just another necessary step of the writing process that will help me improve as a writer.